China ships spotted at disputed atoll have left–PH

Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Philippines Albert Del Rosario. AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Chinese coast guard ships were sighted two weeks ago at a disputed South China Sea atoll, sparking fears Beijing may take control of it, but they were gone when the Philippine government checked on Wednesday, the country’s top diplomat said.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said it’s uncertain if the Chinese ships would return to Jackson Atoll in the Spratlys, adding Philippine defense authorities were constantly monitoring the disputed region. News reports implying that China has occupied the atoll may not be accurate, he said.

“They might be back tomorrow, they may not, but the defense authorities would have to observe,” del Rosario told reporters.

Mayor Eugenio Bito-onon Jr., who heads a Philippine-claimed region in the disputed Spratly Islands, said he saw the Chinese ships at the atoll for two straight days last week while flying in a plane over the area.

Bito-onon said Chinese government vessels have not been stationed at the atoll, which the Philippines calls Quirino, in the years he has been passing by the uninhabited, ring-shaped reef.

Jackson Atoll lies several kilometers (miles) from the Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef, which China occupied in 1995 and has developed into an island with what appears to be a runway. It lies midway between Palawan province and Filipino-occupied Thitu Island in the Spratlys.

A Philippine security official said an air force surveillance plane did not see Chinese vessels on a flight Wednesday.

“I’m alarmed because we frequently pass by that atoll on our way to Pag-asa,” Bito-onon told The Associated Press by telephone, using the Philippine name for Thitu Island, where he frequently travels to visit a Filipino fishing community guarded by troops.

Filipino, Vietnamese and Malaysian fishing boats have gone to Jackson’s vast fishing lagoon for years, Bito-onon said.

Philippine planes landing and taking off at Thitu have been warned frequently to stay away by Chinese forces based at the nearby Subi Reef, one of seven reefs in the disputed Spratlys that China has built into islands in the last two years using dredged sand. The plane that he was on last week that flew to Thitu was shooed away again by the Chinese at Subi, Bito-onon said.

“When you take off or land, you’ll hear their warning: ‘You are flying within our security zone, please leave immediately to avoid miscalculation,'” Bito-onon said.

He has said those Chinese warnings are an act of intimidation and show the threat to freedom of overflight in the region.

Civil Aviation Authority personnel also received radio warnings on a flight to Thitu last January to conduct an engineering survey for installing civil aviation safety equipment on the island.

The United States and governments that lay claims to parts of the disputed region have expressed alarm over China’s island construction, saying it raises tensions and threatens regional stability and could violate freedom of navigation and overflight.

Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have conflicting territorial claims in the Spratlys. TVJ

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