AFP rejects China's claim, calls out illegal incursion in WPS

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Tuesday rejected China’s claim that the Philippines' invitation to external countries to conduct joint patrols caused security risks in the South China Sea (SCS).

In a press conference at Camp Aguinaldo, AFP spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea (WPS) Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad stressed that allegations claiming the Philippines is causing tension by inviting allied nations for bilateral and multilateral maritime activities are misleading and unfounded.

He stressed that such claims distort the Philippines’ rightful efforts to assert its sovereignty over its own maritime territory.

In a report published by China-run media outlet Global Times, quoting the official WeChat account of the PLA Southern Theater Command, Senior Colonel Tian Junli alleged that the Philippines' efforts to involve countries from outside the region in so-called joint patrols have escalated security risks in the South China Sea and undermined regional peace and stability.

In response, Trinidad pointed out that the Philippines is exercising its legal rights under international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

He then emphasized that it is China’s incursions into the West Philippine Sea that constitute unlawful operations within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

"On their claim that we are inviting foreign powers, I mentioned last week that that statement does not hold any water. On the other hand, they are the illegal presence in our maritime zones," he said.

"I would again like to mention that they should leave, the PLA Navy and the Chinese Coast Guard should leave our maritime zones," he pressed on.

Trinidad said the AFP is adopting a more proactive and flexible approach to counter China’s false claims.

"Contingency plans are all plans. We do not have contingency plans for their misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. What we are doing now is we are countering them actively. Plans are only plans, but for this case in the information domain, we are actively countering all their malign influence operations," he explained.

China’s vast claim of the entire SCS overlaps with the Philippines' exclusive rights to the WPS. Other SCS claimants are Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

Beijing’s expanded ten-dash line claim now covers practically the entire West Philippine Sea.

However, the arbitral tribunal ruling on 16 July 2016, under the UNCLOS, has declared with finality that the Philippines has full exclusive economic one in the WPS and that it should have sovereignty and sovereign rights over the maritime territory.

The Philippines and China are both parties to UNCLOS.