Aussie plane flies over disputed South China Sea

SYDNEY—An Australian military surveillance plane has flown near disputed areas of the South China Sea, it emerged on Wednesday, with the crew heard warning China’s Navy it was on a freedom of navigation mission.

The Royal Australian Air Force carried out the surveillance flight on Nov. 25, but the operation became known only on Wednesday, with Australia emerging as the second country after the United States to challenge China’s claim to almost all of the South China Sea.

Tensions in the region have mounted since China transformed reefs in the South China Sea into artificial islands capable of supporting military facilities, a move the United States says threatens free passage in an area through which $5 trillion in global trade passes every year.

On Oct. 27, Washington infuriated Beijing when the US Navy’s guided missile destroyer USS Lassen sailed within 21 kilometers of at least one artificial island built by China in the disputed Spratly Islands chain.

Days later, two US B-52 strategic bombers flew near the heavily disputed islands in an exercise the United States described as a freedom of overflight operation.

Australian overflight

Now a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) patrol plane has carried out patrols in airspace around the area.

“A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion was conducting a routine maritime patrol in the region as part of Operation Gateway from Nov. 25 to Dec. 4,” a defense department spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Under Operation Gateway, the Australian Defense Force conducts routine maritime surveillance patrols in the North Indian Ocean and South China Sea as a part of Australia’s enduring contribution to the preservation of regional security and stability in Southeast Asia,” the spokesperson added.

The comments follow audio released by BBC late Tuesday after a reporting assignment in the Spratly archipelago.

Freedom of navigation

In the scratchy radio recording, an RAAF pilot is heard speaking to the Chinese Navy.

“China Navy, China Navy,” the voice said. “We are an Australian aircraft exercising international freedom of navigation rights in international airspace in accordance with the international civil aviation convention and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, over.”

BBC said it recorded the audio from a RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft on Nov. 25. It said the message was repeated several times but no response was heard from the Chinese.

The Australian newspaper said it understood that the aircraft did not fly within the 21-km limit China claims around the artificial islands it has built up.

BBC had hired a small plane and taken off from the Philippines, which also claims some of the scattered atolls and reefs in the region, to film Chinese-claimed land and construction and see whether they were challenged.

BBC said its plane was warned several times, with radio communication from the Chinese Navy telling BBC “you are threatening the security of our station.”

Challenged claim

Beijing insists on sovereignty over virtually all the resource-rich South China Sea, but Washington repeatedly says it does not recognize the claims.

In a communiqué after talks in Sydney in November, US allies Japan and Australia called on “all claimants to halt large-scale land reclamation, construction, and use for military purposes” in the South China Sea.

China said it would not stop and instead proceed to develop infrastructure on the artificial islands for both civilian and military uses.

Seven of the artificial islands are on the Philippine side of the Spratly chain. Recent satellite images showed airstrips under construction on at least two of the artificial islands that may be used to land military planes.

The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam have claims in the South China Sea and China’s incursions into its exclusive economic zone in those waters have forced the Philippines to take the dispute to the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration for resolution.

China has refused to take part in the arbitration, but the court has proceeded to hear oral arguments on the Philippine case and is expected to hand down a decision by next June.