A Chinese jet fighter “intercepted” a Philippine aircraft during a patrol flight over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, the Philippines claimed, two days after two Chinese vessels collided while pursuing a Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessel in the same area.
In a press conference yesterday, PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela said that a Cessna Caravan operated by the service was intercepted by a People’s Liberation Army Navy Air Force J-15 fighter jet above the waters off Scarborough Shoal yesterday morning.
Tarriela alleged that the Chinese fighter tailed the Cessna for about 20 minutes, at one point closing to within about 200 feet (60 meters) of the aircraft. “It was not fixed at maintaining such a distance. Sometimes it transferred to the left side of the aircraft, sometimes it went above, sometimes to the right side,” he said, as per The Inquirer. “The mere fact that the jet fighter was doing drastic maneuvering without following a safe path made it more dangerous.”
A journalist for Reuters who was one of several journalists aboard the aircraft recalled watching “as the Chinese fighter closed in on the small Cessna Caravan turboprop.”
Scarborough Shoal, a triangular barrier of reefs about 120 nautical miles (222 kilometers) west of Luzon island, has long been a subject of dispute between China and the Philippines. Despite lying within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, the feature has been under Chinese control since a protracted stand-off between the two countries in 2012. It has been the subject of frequent incidents in the years since, most of them focusing on Chinese efforts to prevent Filipino fishermen from accessing the shoal.
The PCG’s Cessna was conducting a maritime domain awareness flight in the wake of the incident that took place on Monday, when two Chinese vessels collided with each other while allegedly trying to block a Philippine supply mission close to fishermen at Scarborough Shoal.
While attempting a “risky maneuver” to block a PCG vessel, a Chinese naval vessel collided with a China Coast Guard (CCG) patrol ship, the PCG later alleged. This left the latter with a caved-in bow, according to photographs and video taken from on board the PCG vessel. The Philippine Foreign Ministry later accused Beijing of “dangerous maneuvers and unlawful interference” during the supply mission.
During yesterday’s flight, Tarriela said, the PCG observed four CCG vessels alongside six Chinese Maritime Militia boats situated close to the shoal. It also spotted two U.S. warships, the littoral combat ship USS Cincinnati and the destroyer USS Higgins, around 102 nautical miles from the coast of Zambales.
In a later statement, the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command said that the USS Higgins had entered the waters “without approval of the Chinese government” yesterday, and that it first monitored and then “drove away” the vessel. “The U.S. move seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, severely undermined peace and stability in the South China Sea,” it added.
A subsequent statement from the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet described the Chinese statement as “false,” saying that the Higgins was undertaking a freedom of navigation operation near Scarborough Shoal “consistent with international law.”
It is likely that the deployment of the J-15 fighter jet was a direct result of Monday’s embarrassing collision close to Scarborough Shoal. As Collin Koh, of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, wrote on X yesterday, “Beijing isn’t expected to roll back. Instead, to claw back the ‘face’ lost, it’ll likely step up its aggressive posture lest it signals weakness.”
Sure enough, in an editorial yesterday, the Global Times struck a belligerent tone, describing the incident at Scarborough Shoal as a “carefully planned provocation” by Manila.
“There is no doubt that should the Philippines persist in such provocative moves, it will inevitably face more targeted countermeasures from China,” it stated. The Global Times later released its own video purporting to show the PCG vessel conducting “highly dangerous maneuvers,” but which appears to show it simply being pursued at high speed by the CCG patrol boat.
After a relative lull in maritime incidents between China and the Philippines, it seems that we could be set for a new season of tension in the South China Sea.