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MANILA (Bloomberg/AFP): The US, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Philippines will undertake a joint military activity in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea on Sept. 28.
"The Maritime Cooperative Activity demonstrates our collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” the Australian Defence Department said in a statement Saturday.
The exercise comes amid rising tensions between Beijing and Manila over competing claims in the South China Sea.
Australia’s HMAS Sydney and a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft would participate, according to the statement
Meanwhile, Chinese naval and air forces conducted patrols around a flashpoint reef in the South China Sea on Saturday, after a slew of tense encounters with the Philippines in the disputed waterway in recent months.
The patrols coincided with joint exercises carried out by the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Philippines in Manila's exclusive economic zone.
Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims of several Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines among them, and an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
Its claims include the waters around Scarborough Shoal -- which Beijing seized from Manila in 2012 -- where the Chinese military's Southern Theater Command said Saturday it held air and sea patrols.
The triangular chain of reefs and rocks is 240 kilometres (150 miles) west of the Philippines' main island of Luzon and nearly 900 kilometres from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan.
Beijing said the training activities around the shoal included "reconnaissance, early warning, and air-sea patrols". - Bloomberg/AFP
