China steps up combat readiness patrols around Scarborough Shoal in fresh South China Sea flare-up
China's navy, air force and coast guard all conducted patrols around the disputed Scarborough Shoal on Friday, calling them a countermeasure to Philippine actions as tensions between Beijing and Manila resurfaced at a regional defence gathering.
China's military said on Friday that its naval and air forces had conducted combat readiness patrols around Scarborough Shoal, the disputed reef in the South China Sea that has long been one of the sharpest flashpoints between Beijing and Manila.
In a statement, the People's Liberation Army Southern Theater Command described the patrols as a "necessary countermeasure in response to the Philippines' rights-violation and provocative acts." It said such patrols had been strengthened this month and were aimed at further enhancing China's control and management over the relevant waters and airspace, and at coping with all kinds of violations and provocations.
The military was not alone on the water. Separately, the China Coast Guard said it had also conducted law-enforcement patrols in the waters around the shoal on Friday, using the same language of a necessary countermeasure — a pairing of naval, air and coast guard activity that underlines how Beijing layers military and civilian-maritime pressure at contested features.
Neither the Chinese military nor the coast guard specified which Philippine actions they were responding to. The Philippine embassy in Beijing and the Philippine military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the patrols.
The flare-up at sea landed in the middle of a diplomatic row on land. Tensions resurfaced at the close of a two-day Association of Southeast Asian Nations defence gathering in Cebu, in the Philippines, where Beijing accused an unnamed Philippine politician of obstructing China's participation in the event. Defence Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang told a press conference on Thursday that the politician had "imposed obstacles to China's participation" at the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus.
China was represented at that meeting by a military attaché rather than by Defence Minister Dong Jun, who was likely attending a key Communist Party plenum in Beijing this week. Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro responded that it was for ASEAN itself to determine how China would be heard, and Manila has said its defence ministry sent notice to its Chinese counterpart with an invitation to join the forum. Relations have soured further recently after China imposed sanctions on Teodoro himself.
The shoal sits inside a much larger argument. China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea through a nine-dash line drawn on its maps, a claim that cuts into the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Indonesia, and that an international ruling has said has no legal basis — a ruling Beijing rejects.
Other players at the Cebu gathering described a region under growing strain. Australia's Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Thursday that China's military build-up was creating a "condition of pressure" in Southeast Asia, calling it the biggest conventional build-up the world has seen since the end of the Second World War, and Manila has said China's coast guard, navy and other vessel presence in contested areas nearly doubled in September.
Friday's patrols therefore fit a pattern rather than standing alone: more frequent Chinese operations around the shoal, a diplomatic channel strained by sanctions and public accusations, and neighbouring states deepening their own defence cooperation in response. Whether the tempo eases may depend less on the statements than on whether the ASEAN diplomatic track can be repaired — and nothing in Friday's announcements suggested either capital was backing down.
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