Philippines says it monitored illegal presence of over 135 Chinese vessels in South China Sea

The Philippines Coast Guard (PCG) said on Sunday (Dec 3) that it monitored the illegal presence of more than 135 Chinese maritime militia vessels at a reef in the South China Sea. In a statement posted on X, Coast Guard officer Jay Tarriela said that on Nov 13, the PCG monitored 111 Chinese Maritime Militia (CMM) swarming the area of Julian Felipe Reef, and this number increased to 125 based on the last monitoring of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. 

Tarriela said that in response to this alarming development, authorities directed the PCG to carry out a maritime patrol to challenge and document the illegal presence of the CMM in Julian Felipe Reef.

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"Yesterday, the PCG Commandant, Coast Guard Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan, deployed PCG vessels, BRP Sindangan and BRP Cabra, to conduct patrols in the immediate vicinity of Julian Felipe Reef. No response was made to the radio challenges issued by the PCG to the CMM vessels which is now estimated to have grown to more than 135 vessels dispersed and scattered within Julian Felipe Reef," he added.

The Julian Felipe Reef is located 175 nautical miles west of Bataraza, Palawan. It is considered a low-tide elevation within the territorial sea of relevant high-tide features in the Kalayaan Island Group, including Chigua Reef, over which the Philippines has sovereignty.

This development comes two days after the Philippines built a new coast guard station on the Thitu Island in the South China Sea. The country's outpost of the island is its biggest and most strategically important in the South China Sea.

Thitu lies about 480 kilometres west of the Philippine province of Palawan. The island is home to about 200 people and is used by Manila to maintain its territorial claim.

The three-storey Coast Guard station, inaugurated on Friday, is equipped with state-of-the-art technology such as radar, automatic identification, satellite communication, and coastal cameras, the PCG said in a statement.

During a visit to Thitu, Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said, "The behaviour of the Chinese Coast Guard, People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and Chinese militias are sometimes unpredictable."

"They do not adhere to the international order, to the rule of law," he added.