Chinese ships return to Panatag after ‘Enteng’
After leaving for a few days to avoid the impact of Tropical Storm “Enteng” (international name: Yagi) last week, Chinese vessels are sailing back to Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.
Seven Chinese ships were on their way from Panganiban (Mischief) Reef to Panatag Shoal, 640 kilometers away from each other, to replace the vessels that “left in advance” last week due to Enteng, said Ray Powell, director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency initiative of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University.
The seven ships include six Qiong Sansha Yu maritime militia vessels and a China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel 3302, Powell said in a post on X on Sunday.
Enteng exited the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) on Sept. 4 and moved west northwestward, according to weather bureau Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), adding that its effects were continued to be felt on the country’s western area while it enhanced the southwest monsoon (“habagat”).
On Sunday, Pagasa reported that the southwest monsoon would continue to affect Luzon, adding that it was monitoring two low pressure areas outside PAR.
A day before Enteng left PAR, Powell said on X that six of the Chinese militia ships left Scarborough Shoal ahead of the tropical storm.
Flash point
At that time, Pagasa reported that Enteng was moving west northwestward over the West Philippine Sea before strengthening into a typhoon.
Its exact location back then was over the coastal waters of Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, packing 75 km per hour (kph) of maximum sustained winds and gustiness of up to 115 kph, according to weather specialists from Pagasa.
Among its effects at that time were strong to gale-force winds, the weather bureau added in its tropical cyclone bulletin on Sept. 3.
According to Powell, “at least one large China Coast Guard ship, [the] 111-meter CCG 3305,” stayed in the area, “perhaps intending to ride out the storm there.”
Scarborough Shoal has been one of the flash point areas in the West Philippine Sea, with multiple Chinese ships surveying or patrolling the waters at least a thousand kilometers away from their mainland—in contrast to a 2016 arbitral ruling upholding the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in this maritime area.
Panatag Shoal lies 230 km from the nearest coast of Zambales province.
The landmark ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague stemmed from a case filed by Manila in 2013, a year after China seized control of Scarborough Shoal’s lagoon after a standoff between its coast guard and the Philippine Navy.
Earlier incidents
Before the latest storm to enter the Philippines, China on Aug. 22 fired flares at a Philippine aircraft patrolling over Zamora (Subi) Reef and Panatag Shoal.
The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) said the flares were fired from Zamora Reef and targeted the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan plane of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
During an earlier patrol at Panatag on Aug. 19, the same plane also encountered flares and what the NTF-WPS called “dangerous maneuvers” from a People’s Liberation Army-Air Force fighter jet.
On Aug. 8, two China Air Force jets “executed … dangerous maneuver[s] … and dropped flares in the path of our NC-212i,” Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said in a statement. —WITH A report from INQUIRER RESEARCH INQ
