Another Chinese ship spotted shadowing Balikatan exercises

MANILA, Philippines — Another vessel of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was spotted yesterday near the location of the participating ships for the Multilateral Maritime Exercises (MME) under Balikatan 2024 in Palawan.

Capt. Ariel Coloma, spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Western Command, said ships conducting MME in the northern part of Palawan monitored a PLAN vessel with bow number 578 around 9 a.m.

“We are monitoring them, too. We record. Then we report whatever our ships are monitoring in the area,” Coloma said

Previously, a Chinese ship with bow number 793 was seen on Saturday in the vicinity of Balikatan ships conducting the MME, he said. However, 793 is no longer in the area. 

“As long as we continue to monitor and report them, we have the confidence that we are in control of the situation in the area. The exercises continue. The MME’s training events continue,” Coloma said. “In fact, they are now preparing for a photo exercise with our allied counterparts and search and rescue simulation drills.”

The MME, involving the navies of the Philippines, United States and France, is being held within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Coloma said the military exercise planners have considered scenarios, contingencies and sightings of Chinese vessels.

“On a daily basis we are successful and we are achieving our training objectives,” he added.

The MME started on April 25 and ends in the southern part of Palawan today.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Coast Guard said yesterday that they would be monitoring a reported China-flagged research vessel that has allegedly been “loitering” in the east coast of the country for more than two days.

Coast Guard spokesperson Rear Admiral Armand Balilo told The STAR that they would “monitor” the movements of the research survey vessel Shen Kuo, whose location was detected through a Twitter post by maritime security analyst Ray Powell, director of SeaLight at the Stanford Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. 

Balilo’s response was based on Powell’s post that “China’s Hong Kong-based deep sea research ship Shen Kuo which carries the submersible Rainbow Fish, has been loitering off