China conducts military exercise near disputed reef with Philippines

China announced will conduct a military exercise in the South China Sea near Scarborough Reef, a controlled island on Wednesday. by Beijing but claimed through Manila, against a backdrop of recurring bilateral tensions.

These army maneuvers, which are rare around this reef, come at a time when the Philippines launched two days of joint maritime and air exercises in the region on Wednesday with the United States, Canada and Australia.

Military activity on both sides that comes after several incidents in recent months around islets that Beijing and Manila are fiercely contesting in the South China Sea.

China “is conducting a joint combat patrol in the maritime and airspace near Huangyan Island”, the Chinese name for Scarborough Reef, the Chinese military's Southern Operations Theater said in a statement on Wednesday.

The operation aims to “test the reconnaissance and early warning, rapid maneuver and joint strike capabilities of its troops”, it said.

The South China Sea © AFP – Valentin RAKOVSKY, Sophie RAMIS

“All military activities that disrupt the situation in the South China Sea, create points of tension and compromise regional peace and stability are under control,” the army stressed. An apparent allusion to the maneuvers currently being carried out by the Philippines with its Western allies.

China claims much of the islands and reefs in the South China Sea. Other littoral states such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have competing, sometimes overlapping, claims.

Each nation typically controls several islets.

– “Intimidate” –

In 2012, Beijing recaptured the Scarborough Reef from Manila, where the Chinese exercise is taking place Wednesday. Since then, it has deployed ships there that the Philippines says are harassing its fishermen trying to access the area.

The Chinese military has deployed there in the past, Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute of Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea in Manila, told AFP. But with this new exercise on Wednesday, he said, the aim was “to intimidate.”

“This is definitely a message, a show of force,” he said.

But the tension is perhaps only relative, nuance Ja Ian Chong, professor at the National University of Singapore and specialist in Chinese foreign policy.

“If in the end this confrontation on both sides remains limited, so the different parties are in the right position and above all want to display their points of view,” he told AFP.

Filipino fishermen in front of a Chinese military ship off the coast of the Scraborough Reef, an islet controlled by China but claimed by the Philippines, on February 15, 2024 © AFP – Ted ALJIBE

Opposite, the maneuvers involving the Philippines, the United States, Australia and Canada are also taking place in the South China Sea, west of the large Philippine island of Palawan, the Philippine army said on Wednesday.

The United States has deployed a warship and a helicopter, according to it.

According to a statement from the US Navy, this joint exercise aims to “support” the emergence of a “free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

This expression, frequently used by the United States, designates, according to them, an Asia-Pacific zone that is free from hegemonic influences. A veiled way of criticizing China and its territorial claims.

– Grounded ship –

For his part, the Philippine Chief of Staff Romeo Brawner indicated that the exercise “underlines the commitment of our nations to guarantee peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region”.

In recent months, China-Philippines tensions have reached levels not seen in several years.

Verbal and physical confrontations have been particularly frequent around the Second Thomas Atoll. Filipino soldiers are stationed there on a military ship that was deliberately grounded by Manila in 1999 to assert its sovereignty claims.

Despite the tensions, Beijing and Manila have reached an “interim arrangement” for the resupply of Filipino troops on this atoll.

Since Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos came to power in 2022, Manila has asserted its sovereignty claims more firmly, in the face of Beijing, which itself does not intend to give in on its claims.

This China-Philippines confrontation fuels fears of a potential conflict that could lead to Washington's intervention because of its mutual defense treaty with Manila.

China regularly accuses the United States of supporting deliberately the nations that compete with it on territorial claims in order to counter its rise in power.

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