MANILA: The Philippine, US and Japanese militaries conducted joint exercises this week over the Bashi Channel that separates the Philippines from Taiwan, officials said Friday.<\/p>\n
Aircraft from the three nations patrolled over the Philippines\u2019 northernmost Batanes islands in drills aimed at showcasing their \u201cability to operate seamlessly together in complex maritime environments,\u201d the Philippine military said in a statement.<\/p>\n
It marks the first time that so-called Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activities involving the countries have expanded beyond the South China Sea, where the Philippines and China have engaged in repeated clashes over disputed territory.<\/p>\n
Little more than 100 km separates the Philippines and self-ruled Taiwan, which China views as its territory and has not ruled out taking by force.<\/p>\n
\u201cAir operations were conducted within airspace over Philippine territory and its territorial sea, north of Luzon,\u201d the Philippine military said in a statement, adding naval vessels had stayed west of the Batanes island chain.<\/p>\n
Armed forces public affairs chief Colonel Xerxes Trinidad said it was the \u201cfirst time\u201d MMCA operations had been conducted in the \u201csaid operational box.\u201d<\/p>\n
The military\u2019s statement said that box extended \u201cup to the northern tip of Luzon, particularly Mavulis Island,\u201d which hosts small Philippine navy and marine detachments.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s military reacted angrily to the drills on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Philippines co-opted countries outside the region to organise the so-called joint patrols, disrupting peace and stability in the region,\u201d said Zhai Shichen, spokesperson for the PLA\u2019s Southern Theater Command.<\/p>\n
He added that China had conducted a \u201croutine patrol\u201d of the South China Sea from Feb. 23 to 26.<\/p>\n
In November, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sent relations with Beijing into a tailspin by suggesting that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attack on Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Beijing imposed export restrictions and warned its citizens against visiting Japan, while accusing Tokyo of attempting to \u201crevive militarism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s defense minister upped the ante by saying on Tuesday that Tokyo planned to deploy surface-to-air missiles on one of its remote western islands located near Taiwan by early 2031.<\/p>\n
In August, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos warned that the Philippines would be dragged \u201ckicking and screaming\u201d into any war over Taiwan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope it doesn\u2019t happen … But if it does, we have to plan for it already,\u201d he said, citing the large numbers of Filipinos working in Taiwan.<\/p>\n
The Philippine-US-Japanese exercise took place over six days and concluded on Thursday. It included a live-fire gunnery exercise conducted by the guided missile frigate BRP Antonio Luna.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA: The Philippine, US and Japanese militaries conducted joint exercises this week over the Bashi Channel that separates the Philippines from Taiwan, officials said Friday. Aircraft from the three nations patrolled over the Philippines\u2019 northernmost Batanes islands in drills aimed at showcasing their \u201cability to operate seamlessly together in complex maritime environments,\u201d the Philippine military …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94450,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94428\/revisions\/94450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}