MANILA, Philippines, July 2 ------ A Chinese aircraft carrier was reportedly spotted off the western part of Luzon island in what a Filipino security expert deemed a “calculated” move to punish Manila for its “strategic actions” in the West Philippine Sea dispute.
Global Times on Sunday reported that People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s (PLA-N) aircraft carrier Shandong “recently arrived” about 200 nautical miles away from Luzon or within the edge of the West Philippine Sea. West Philippine Sea monitor Ray Powell said it is hard to determine the exact location of the aircraft carrier, which was only commissioned in 2019. “Unfortunately I can’t see the PLA Navy very well,” Powell, program head of Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation which monitors Chinese vessel activity in the South China Sea.
Powell said this is due to the aircraft carrier’s automatic identification system (AIS) being turned off. “Military vessels aren’t required to use AIS. China’s [warships] don’t,” he said. Shandong, one of the two aircraft carriers under the PLA-N’s fleet, is also likely on a scheduled exercise in preparation for a potential voyage into the West Pacific Ocean, the Global Times also reported.
For Chester Cabalza, president and founder of Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, the presence of China’s only domestically built aircraft carrier was “curated out of fear and insecurity” of Beijing over Manila’s alliance with “democratic countries.” “It only proves that the Philippines’ strategic actions are effective that stirs the countermeasures to ascertain Chinese hegemony in the tense region,” Cabalza told on Monday.
The deployment of this aircraft carrier is part of Beijing’s continuous flexing of muscles amid worsening tensions in the West Philippine Sea.
Source: inquirer.net