China monitored Philippine supply mission to grounded warship at shoal

THE Chinese Coast Guard on Wednesday said it monitored a Philippine civilian boat delivering supplies to an “illegally grounded” warship at the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea on Tuesday.

China urges the Philippines to honor its commitments, stop hyping up incidents in the area and work with China to manage the maritime situation, the coast guard said in a statement on Wednesday.

Resupply missions for soldiers aboard the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II-era warship that Manila grounded at the shoal in 1999 to assert its claim, has been a significant cause of tension between the two countries until they reached a provisional agreement in July on such missions.

China and the Philippines claim the territory and frequently clash in its surrounding waters. In January, they also agreed to seek common ground and find ways to cooperate despite their sea dispute.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines said it had completed the routine troop rotation and resupply mission to BRP Sierra Madre “in resolute commitment to maintaining its presence and operational readiness in the West Philippine Sea.”

It carried out the mission with the Philippine Coast Guard which was “completed with no untoward incident,” it said in a statement.

“This marks the fifth consecutive routine troop rotation and resupply mission at BRP Sierra Madre… without any untoward incident,” military spokesman Xerxes A. Trinidad said in a separate statement.

A contingent of Filipino marines are stationed on the marooned ship, living in the dilapidated vessel serving as an active military outpost in a region where China and the Philippines claim territory and frequently clash.

Tensions between Manila and Beijing flared in June last year after the Chinese Coast Guard rammed and boarded Philippine vessels attempting to resupply the moored ship.

The two nations agreed on an arrangement to ease tensions at Second Thomas Shoal a month after the incident.

The Philippines and China have been at loggerheads over disputed features in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety. A United Nations-backed tribunal based in the Hague in 2016 voided China’s claim for being illegal.

Philippine forces routinely conduct resupply missions about every two months to rotate stationed troops and bring in provisions. China had tried to block Philippine ships from resupplying BRP Sierra Madre.

China has expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea that overlap with the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Also on Wednesday, the Philippine Air Force grounded the fleet of its most advanced fighter jet as it launched an investigation of the crash of one of its units, it said in a statement.

An FA-50 plane went missing on Tuesday after it lost contact with other aircraft involved in a military operation minutes before reaching their target area in southern Philippines.

Military troops found the aircraft and the bodies of the two pilots on Mt. Kalatungan in Bukidnon province in Mindanao.

“The wreckage, all indications point to it being a crash,” air force spokesperson Ma. Consuelo N. Castillo told a virtual news briefing. “The investigation is also looking at the angle of engine damage as the aircraft could have been fired at.”

The Philippines bought 12 Korean-made FA-50 light fighter jets for a total of P18.9 billion in 2014 as part of efforts to modernize its aging military arsenal amid sea tensions with China. The jets are the Southeast Asian nation’s most advanced fighter aircraft. Its military plane inventory mostly consists of turboprops. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio with Reuters