July 2, 2024
MANILA – A Chinese aircraft carrier was reportedly spotted off the western part of Luzon island in what a Filipino security expert deemed a “calculated” move to punish Manila for its “strategic actions” in the West Philippine Sea dispute.
Global Times on Sunday reported that People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s (PLA-N) aircraft carrier Shandong “recently arrived” about 200 nautical miles away from Luzon or within the edge of the West Philippine Sea.
West Philippine Sea monitor Ray Powell said it is hard to determine the exact location of the aircraft carrier, which was only commissioned in 2019.
“Unfortunately I can’t see the PLA Navy very well,” Powell, program head of Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation which monitors Chinese vessel activity in the South China Sea, told INQUIRER.net.
Powell said this is due to the aircraft carrier’s automatic identification system (AIS) being turned off.
“Military vessels aren’t required to use AIS. China’s [warships] don’t,” he said.
Shandong, one of the two aircraft carriers under the PLA-N’s fleet, is also likely on a scheduled exercise in preparation for a potential voyage into the West Pacific Ocean, the Global Times also reported.
For Chester Cabalza, president and founder of Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, the presence of China’s only domestically built aircraft carrier was “curated out of fear and insecurity” of Beijing over Manila’s alliance with “democratic countries.”
“It only proves that the Philippines’ strategic actions are effective that stirs the countermeasures to ascertain Chinese hegemony in the tense region,” Cabalza told INQUIRER.net on Monday.
The deployment of this aircraft carrier is part of Beijing’s continuous flexing of muscles amid worsening tensions in the West Philippine Sea.
From June 17 until June 27, China Coast Guard’s (CCG) biggest vessel dubbed as “monster ship” conducted what Powell called an “intrusive patrol” in the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
Also on June 17, CCG personnel also rammed, towed, and even boarded Philippine Navy boats during a resupply mission in the Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal, which the Philippine military said led to what they deem as “looting” and even caused serious injuries to one of its naval personnel.
On June 4, the Chinese navy conducted its amphibious drills in Sabina Shoal, which saw the deployment of PLA-N’s Type 071 amphibious transport dock that hosted hovercrafts. The deployment of hovercraft in the West Philippine Sea is unprecedented, according to the Philippine Coast Guard.
“It’s aerial and naval projections in the South China Sea through its aircraft carrier Shandong validates their psychological operations as Beijing tries to reverse the story on Philippine provocations on Chinese islands and reefs in the South China Sea,” Cabalza further said.
Beijing asserts sovereignty in almost the entire South China Sea, including most of the West Philippine Sea, even if such a claim has been effectively invalidated by the arbitral award issued in July 2016.
The landmark ruling stemmed from a case filed by Manila in 2013, or a year after its tense standoff with Beijing over Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, whose lagoon the latter now has an effective control of.