China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea must be challenged and checked, the commander of the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet said on Sunday.
“My forces are out here for a reason,” said US Navy Vice Admiral Karl Thomas, as he assured the Philippines of US backing in the face of “shared challenges” in the region.
The largest of the US Navy’s forward-deployed fleets, the Seventh Fleet, stationed in Japan, operates as many as 70 ships, has about 150 aircraft and more than 27,000 sailors and it operates over an area of 124 million square kilometers from bases in Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
“You have to challenge people, I would say, operating in a grey zone. When they’re taking a little bit more and more and pushing you, you’ve got to push back, you have to sail and operate,” Thomas said in an interview with Reuters.
“There’s really no better example of aggressive behavior than the activity on Aug. 5 on the shoal,” he added – referring to the use of water cannons by Chinese Coast Guard vessels on Filipino boats trying to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre on Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal.
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said that he agrees with Thomas that Chinese aggression must be checked and challenged.
“He’s correct, we agree – we will still practice maximum tolerance, we will try to avoid [conflict] but we will go on with our mission,” Brawner said.
“We are leveraging our alliances and our partnerships with like minded countries,” he added.
Brawner also said that they increased maritime operations in the area to make sure that the movements and actions of the Chinese are being monitored.
“We have increased the frequency of maritime patrols and the number of platforms doing these,” the AFP chief said.
AFP spokesperson Col. Medel Aguilar said the Chinese must learn to understand the charter of the United Nations and the arbitral ruling favoring the Philippines.
“They should understand UNCLOS more,” he said, referring to the United National Convention on the Law of the Sea. “They should uphold it being a signatory to it.”
Thomas said he had had discussions with AFP Western Command chief, Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos, overseeing the South China Sea, “to understand what his challenges are to find opportunities to be able to help him.”
“We certainly shared challenges. So I wanted to better understand how he views the operations that he’s responsible for. And I want to make sure that he understood what I had available,” Thomas, who was in Manila for a port call, SAID.
The Philippines won its case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration against China in 2016, after a tribunal said Beijing’s sweeping claim to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea had no legal basis.
China has refused to recognize the ruling, however, and has built militarized, man made islands in the South China Sea. Its claim of historic sovereignty overlaps with the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
Brawner said the military exercises with other countries, including the United States and Australia, were not directed towards any other country.
“‘The coalition and the joint exercises that we are doing are not addressed towards one specific country,” Brawner said in an interview with reporters after the ceremonies held at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig for the National Heroes Day celebration.
More than a thousand troops from the Philippines and Australia, assisted by United States soldiers, participated earlier in a combined amphibious military assault exercise in San Antonio, Zambales.
The AFP said that the activity was part of Philippines-Australia Alon Exercise 2023 and the participants were composed of 1,200 personnel from the Australian Defence Force (ADF), 560 from the AFP, and 120 from the US Marine Corps.
The Exercise Alon enables the AFP and ADF to work closely together to increase interoperability, and deepen people-to-people links to enhance defense cooperation, it added.
The joint military exercise of the Philippines and Australia will have its closing ceremonies on Aug. 29 at the Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.