PH Navy shrugs off Chinese warships’ presence during 4-nation patrol in WPS

WPS COMPOSITE IMAGE from Inquirer, AFP, Reuters file photos

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Navy on Thursday shrugged off Chinese warships’ presence during its drills with the United States, Canada, and Australia in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

The second day of the multilateral maritime cooperative activity (MMCA) saw the four countries conducting antisubmarine warfare drills.

READ: West Philippine Sea: PH holds joint patrols with US, Canada, Australia

However, the drills saw the continued presence of three People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) ships, according to Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, navy spokesperson for the WPS.

Trinidad said PLA-N’s Jiangdao II class corvettes, namely Wuzhou (FSG 626), Huangshan (FFG 570), and Qujing (FSG 668) came as close as four nautical miles from the exercise area.

READ: 3 Chinese warships seen during 4-nation joint patrols in WPS

But their distance “is not a cause for concern,” Trinidad said in a phone interview.

“If they monitor us, we also monitor them,” he added.

He also called Chinese warships’ presence “dubious and inappropriate.”

The Philippines regularly conducts MMCA with its allied countries amid tensions in the WPS.

“We could expect more MMCAs in the future because the thrust right now is to bring in the international community of like-minded navies and like-minded nations,” Trinidad said.

On Wednesday, China said it carried out a patrol at the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal in the WPS, a move which Chinese publication Global Times called an apparent response to the MMCA of Manila, Washington, Ottawa, and Canberra.

READ: West Philippine Sea: China launches air, sea patrols near Scarborough Shoal

China asserts sovereignty in almost the entire South China Sea, including most of the WPS, through its now 10-dash-line. A July 2016 arbitral award already invalidated Beijing’s then nine-dash-line.

The landmark ruling stemmed from a case filed by Manila in 2013, a year after its tense standoff with Beijing over Panatag Shoal, whose lagoon Beijing now has effective control of.