China launches air, sea patrols near flashpoint reef as US holds joint drills

BEIJING: China carried out a combat patrol to test “strike capabilities” near a flashpoint reef in the South China Sea on Wednesday, as the United States and its allies held joint military drills in the same waters.

Tensions in the disputed waterway have spiked following a series of escalating confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels that have fanned fears of a wider conflict that could draw in the United States due to its mutual defence treaty with Manila.

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims of several Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, and an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

Its claims include the waters around Scarborough Shoal — which Beijing seized from Manila in 2012 — where the Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command said Wednesday it had held joint sea and air patrols.

The triangular chain of reefs and rocks is 240 kilometres (150 miles) west of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon and nearly 900 kilometres from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan.

Beijing said the manoeuvres tested “the reconnaissance and early warning, rapid mobility, and joint strike capabilities of theatre troops”.