Analyst: Chinese Air Force Actions in South China Sea an Escalation
The Philippines has condemned China’s air force for its actions in the skies above the South China Sea, an area claimed by both Beijing and Manila. It follows an incident in which Chinese fighter jets fired flares in the path of a Philippine military transport plane near the Scarborough Shoal.
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00:00Aaron, I want to first start off with asking you, how dangerous was this incident where
00:05this Chinese aircraft launched flares so close to the Philippine aircraft?
00:08You know, there's a pretty big escalation by the Chinese in regards of incidents.
00:13And you know, it could be argued that this is part of the trend that we've been seeing
00:17since last fall, where the Chinese slowly step up their assertiveness and their aggressive
00:22actions against Philippine assets, whether that be aircraft or vessels.
00:27You know, the aerial stuff takes kind of a backseat compared to the maritime incidents
00:32where we see more severe incidents.
00:33But the videos we've seen, right, really drastic change of pace.
00:37You know, Chinese aircraft dropping flares and doing evasive maneuvers or disruptive
00:42maneuvers in front of other aircraft is not a new thing.
00:45I believe there was a recent incident earlier this year with an Australian aircraft, a helicopter.
00:50So you know, it's just very concerning regarding the Philippine scenario.
00:53Do you think the Philippines is concerned that tensions in the South China Sea, which
00:57are usually between ships, is not going to spread between aircraft in the skies?
01:02You know, for sure.
01:03That's actually been something that's actually been something that's been on the table, especially
01:08when we talk about maritime co-operative activities.
01:10So that's basically the term for joint patrols between Manila and other partners such as
01:14Canberra, Tokyo, Ottawa now, and now Washington.
01:18So you know that when you bring an aircraft into the equation, the Chinese will probably
01:23get up there as we've seen across the Pacific.
01:27So the main issue, of course, with the Philippines is if they really expand to this domain, how
01:31exactly do you counter that?
01:33We've seen a lot of hard-learned lessons from Taiwan, right, where the ROCAF gets a bit
01:39exhausted because they have to keep getting their planes up and meeting these guys.
01:42And when we look at the Philippine aerial domain capabilities, right, they only have
01:4712 fighter jets.
01:49Their radar coverage is very limited.
01:50How exactly do you counter these?
01:52And that's a challenge that Manila might have to start thinking about going forward, especially
01:56after this incident.
01:58This incident happens at the same time that China and the United States are conducting
02:02separate exercises.
02:03Do you think we're going to see a trend where both sides kind of feel that the South China
02:07Sea is too small to operate in this waterway?
02:12You know, for sure, that's a big concern.
02:14But right now, the prerogative is everything at Manila's pace.
02:17So these maritime, these joint patrols all come at the discretion of Manila, you know,
02:22and definitely there are measures the United States could do to support that, whether it
02:25be, you know, FONOPS in the area or just doing their own air and maritime activities.
02:29As we've seen recently, half a billion in aid to the Philippines.
02:34So that's a big, and they explicitly said that's focusing on getting the Philippines
02:38to defend its sovereignty, civilly, the Philippine military and the Philippine Coast Guard.
02:42So there's a lot of initiatives we could see where these, you know, it might be like these
02:47two big powers clamoring around the South China Sea.