PCG: Aircraft sent to ‘challenge’ Chinese research vessel
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Wednesday deployed an aircraft to challenge the unauthorized presence of a Chinese research ship inside the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), amid suspicions that it was on an intelligence-gathering mission.
US maritime expert Ray Powell on Tuesday said in a post on X that the 85-meter Chinese fisheries research vessel Song Hang was transiting Philippine archipelagic waters on its way south toward Celebes Sea.
Powell, director of SeaLight, a program of Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation that keeps track of Chinese activities in the WPS, told the Inquirer on Wednesday that Song Hang entered the Philippine EEZ north of Luzon on March 29.
“It crossed into the Philippines’ archipelagic waters on March 31 through the Mindoro Strait,” he said.
The vessel left Shanghai, China, on March 26, he added.
As of Wednesday afternoon, he said, the Chinese research ship was still in the Sulu Sea, about 120 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa City, moving southwest toward the Balabac Strait.
‘Dual purpose’
He said he had “no record of the Song Hang ever having entered Philippine archipelagic waters before” or at least in the last five years.
“The Song Hang is considered a fisheries research vessel, but we generally assume all PRC survey ships are dual-purpose and can collect intelligence for the People’s Liberation Army,” he said.
He said the Chinese research ship was on its way to the southeast Indian Ocean and it had “no navigational reason for it to be in the Philippines’ archipelagic waters.”
“When you consider that the Song Hang’s route to the Indian Ocean would not normally take it through the Sulu Sea, we have to consider that it is potentially there to collect intelligence,” he said.
“That could include signals intelligence such data emitted from radars or radios, or it could be mapping the seabed floor,” he added.
No response
At a news forum in Manila on Wednesday, Commodore Jay Tarriela, the PCG spokesperson on the WPS, said the Song Hang had not responded to the radio challenges from the PCG.
“We are challenging them because they are not authorized to conduct a marine scientific research, and they are advised to leave the area if they are doing so,” he said.
In a statement, the PCG said the Chinese vessel was monitored about 69 km south of Cuyo Island in Palawan as of Tuesday afternoon.
“While the vessel is entitled to the right of innocent passage in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the PCG is closely monitoring the vessel’s movement to ensure compliance with all relevant domestic and international maritime regulations and to safeguard the country’s maritime interests,” the PCG said.
The PCG added that it had deployed aerial assets “to conduct surveillance and provide situational awareness.”
Earlier sightings
Under the Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act signed by President Marcos in November 2024, “foreign ships or aircraft, including marine scientific research or survey ships or aircraft, while exercising the right of archipelagic sea lanes passage, shall not conduct oceanographic or hydrographic surveys or any other research or survey activities… unless they have obtained prior permission from the appropriate (Philippine) agency.”
In April last year, the Armed Forces of the Philippines reported the presence of three Chinese research vessels at Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal in addition to a similar craft found lingering in the waters off Viga, Catanduanes province.
In March that same year, two Chinese research vessels were also spotted near Philippine Rise or Benham Rise. Mr. Marcos then remarked that their presence was of “great concern” and a “clear intrusion into our Philippine maritime territory.”
