Overview

• The Philippines, Japan and the U.S. completed a two-day Maritime Cooperative Activity off Zambales featuring search-and-rescue, surveillance and reconnaissance, and anti-submarine drills.
• China’s Southern Theater Command said its forces conducted routine patrols during the period and warned the Philippines to stop provocations and tension escalation.
• Chinese authorities denounced the trilateral deployment as a provocative second joint patrol this month in disputed waters.
• Philippine armed forces spokesman Xerxes Trinidad said the engagements reinforce maritime cooperation, regional security and a rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific.
• The exercises coincided with reporting on China’s plan for a national nature reserve at Scarborough Shoal in a waterway it broadly claims that carries more than $3 trillion in annual trade.