The Philippines said China repeatedly fired flares at its aircraft over the South China Sea last week.
In one incident, a Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources patrol aircraft was conducting a “maritime situational awareness flight” on Thursday when it was threatened by flares fired from a Chinese island base, according to a statement from the West Philippine Sea National Task Force shared with X by Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriera.
The statement said the plane spotted the flares while flying near Zhaobi Reef, a “militarized” island in the disputed Spratly Islands.
A similar incident occurred on Aug. 19, when a Chinese military jet engaged in “irresponsible and dangerous maneuvering” and fired flares “dangerously close to a BFAR Grand Caravan aircraft, approximately 15 meters,” the report continued.
“Although the Chinese fighter jets were not provoked, their actions demonstrated dangerous intent to endanger the safety of the BFAR aircraft’s crew,” the statement added.
NTFWP Statement: On August 22, during a maritime situational awareness flight conducted by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) fired flares from a militarized reclaimed island in Zamora Reef, which is located within Chinese territory. pic.twitter.com/bR1W2zwMLN
— Jay Taryela (@jaytaryela) August 24, 2024
This follows an agreement between China and the Philippines in July aimed at easing tensions over Second Thomas Reef, another reef in the Spratly Islands.
China claims Second Thomas Reef and much of the South China Sea, but an international court of commerce ruled in 2016 that China’s claims to the waters within the “nine-dash line” had no legal basis.
The Philippines deliberately ran the BRP Sierra Madre aground in 1999 to claim the reef as its territory.
Since then, the reef has been a recurring flashpoint in relations between the two countries and at the centre of a series of increasingly heated clashes between the two nations.
“Relations between the two countries in the maritime domain have never been more precarious than they have been over the past seven months,” the International Crisis Group said in May.
In early July, Beijing parked the world’s largest coast guard ship in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, in what Tarriera called “an intimidation by the Chinese coast guard.”
