China fighter jets patrol disputed sea
China recently sent Su-35 fighter jets for a joint combat patrol mission in the South China Sea area, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force said on Wednesday. The deployment is part of the PLA Air Force’s efforts to carry out military training under combat conditions, it said. The jets are expected to enhance the PLA Air Force’s combat capability in the region.
BEIJING— China recently sent Su-35 fighter jets for a joint combat patrol mission in the South China Sea (SCS) area, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force said on Wednesday.
The deployment was part of the PLA Air Force’s efforts to carry out military training under combat conditions, it said.
The Su-35 fighter jets participating in such training are expected to enhance the PLA Air Force’s combat capability under long-distance or high-sea conditions, it added.
The PLA Air Force said it would continue to attach importance to science and technology, rule of law and sound planning in its training to improve its ability to win wars in the new era.
No protests
There was no protest or comment from the Philippines, which has lost seven or eight reefs in the South China Sea to China, or from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which on Tuesday said China’s land reclamation for artificial island building in the heavily disputed waterway had “eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions and may undermine peace, security and stability in the region.”
Chinese media reported on Monday that China would expand some of the artificial islands it had built on seven reefs claimed by the Philippines in the Spratly archipelago.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque has in recent days sought to deflect criticism of the Duterte administration’s acknowledgment of helplessness in the face of China’s intrusion into the West Philippine Sea, waters within the country’s 370kilometer exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.
Security experts have warned that China will soon have effective control of the South China Sea, with the air and naval bases it is building on the artificial islands in the Spratlys nearing completion.
On Thursday, Roque said Malacañang was nobody’s “lackey.” The Philippines, he said, is “not giving away” territory in the South China Sea.
Independent foreign policy
“We are asserting an independent foreign policy. We are not giving out territory. We are protecting our sovereign rights and at the same time we are doing the best that we can, given our state of preparedness,” Roque told reporters.
“So the difference is, we are not willing to be used by other states that want to challenge the dominance, alleged dominance, of China in the region, because we have ceased to be a lackey of any other state. We stand on our own,” he said.
Roque declined to comment on the Chinese media report about Beijing’s plan to expand some of its artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago.
“That’s a newspaper report. We will not comment until there are some formal reports coming from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA),” he said.
No protest from DFA
The DFA, however, has not protested China’s militarization of the artificial islands, following Malacañang’s line that China has a “good faith commitment” not to occupy new islands in the South China Sea.
Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano has even played down China’s construction on the Philippine-claimed reefs.
“They’re not now occupying any new feature that’s uninhabited and there’s [no] new building in new areas,” Cayetano said last December after the US think tank Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative released new satellite images showing the extent of China’s military buildup in the Spratlys.