Chinese Warships Eavesdrop on Joint U.S., Philippine Naval Drills in South China Sea
- The drills, known as Maritime Cooperative Activity (MCA), began on Wednesday and saw the CSG, consisting of carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) with embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59) and destroyers USS Kidd (DDG-100) and USS Sterett (DDG-104), carrying out joint activities and sailing with Philippine Navy offshore patrol vessels BRP Gregorio del Pilar (PS-15, ex-USCGC Hamilton WHEC-715) and BRP Ramon Alcaraz (PS-16, ex-USCGC Dallas WHEC-716) and landing platform dock BRP Davao del Sur (LD-602). A Philippine Navy AW109 helicopter also conducted a deck landing on Carl Vinson.
PLAN ships were in the vicinity observing the drills with a frigate already in the designated exercise area when the Philippine ships arrived there near dawn on Wednesday, according to the Philippines Daily Inquirer, which also reported that a PLAN destroyer also showed up following radio calls between Gregorio del Pilar and the PLAN frigate.
- During the calls, the Philippine Navy ship stated that the PLAN ship was sailing within the Philippine EEZ and asked what its intention were, and received the response, “Philippine warship 15, this is Chinese Navy warship 570 conducting lawful activities in our territorial seas, over,” according to the Inquirer report.
- The PLAN frigate reportedly did not respond to a subsequent radio call and, at 8 a.m., a PLAN destroyer with hull number 174 appeared in the exercise area as well.
The hull numbers of the two PLAN ships corresponded to Luyang III-class destroyer CNS Hefei (174) and Jiangkai II class frigate CNS Huangshan (570). Both ships are part of the PLAN’s South Sea Fleet. In a social media post on Thursday, the Armed Forces of the Philippines released photos and videos of the MCA, which included two videos of Huangshan shadowing Philippine Navy ships on Wednesday.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command, under which the South Sea Fleet falls, issued a release on Wednesday night stating that naval and air forces were organized to conduct routine patrols in the South China Sea on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, the command issued a statement saying it organized a routine joint naval and air exercise in the South China Sea but provided no further details.
The Carl Vinson CSG is now docked in Manila on a scheduled port visit, having arrived there on Friday, according to a Navy release. . .
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