The Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command has staged a large-scale combat readiness exercise around the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, the ministry of defense in Beijing said. Personnel from China’s navy and air force, as well as the coast guard, took part in Sunday’s drills at the group of reefs that China refers to as Huangyan Dao, with a U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ship spotted in the area.
The ministry said that since the beginning of the month, the Southern Theater Command “has organized its naval and air force troops to continuously strengthen maritime and airspace patrols” around the shoal. Scarborough Shoal is known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc, and is well inside its exclusive economic zone, just 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from the main Philippine island of Luzon.