• The Philippines said China repeatedly fired flares at its aircraft over the South China Sea this week.

• It said that in an incident on August 19, a fighter jet fired flares just 15 meters away from its aircraft.

• Tensions between the two countries in the region have increased.

The Philippines said China repeatedly fired flares at its aircraft over the South China Sea last week.

In one case, a patrol aircraft of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources was threatened by flares from a Chinese island base on Thursday while conducting a “Maritime Domain Awareness Flight,” according to a statement from the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea shared on X by Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela.

The plane was flying near Subi Reef, a “militarized” island in the disputed Spratly Islands, when it spotted the flares, the statement said.

A similar incident occurred on August 19, when a Chinese jet “performed irresponsible and dangerous maneuvers” and fired flares “at a dangerously close distance of approximately 15 meters from the BFAR Grand Caravan aircraft,” it said.

“The Chinese fighter jet was not provoked, but its actions demonstrated a dangerous intent that endangered the safety of personnel on board the BFAR aircraft,” the statement added.

It follows an agreement between China and the Philippines in July aimed at reducing tensions over Second Thomas Shoal, another reef in the Spratly Islands.

China claims sovereignty over the Second Thomas Reef – and most of the South China Sea – but an international tribunal ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s claims to the waters within its “Nine-dash line” had no legal basis.

The Philippines laid claim to the reef in 1999 when it deliberately ran the ship BRP Sierra Madre aground there.

Since then, the reef has repeatedly become a flashpoint in relations between the two countries and has been at the centre of a series of increasingly violent clashes between the two countries.

In May, the International Crisis Group stated that “maritime relations between the two countries have never been as volatile as they have been over the past seven months.”

In early July, Beijing anchored the world’s largest coast guard ship in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, which Tarriela described as an “attempt at intimidation by the Chinese coast guard.”

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