US, Japan, Philippines hold five-day South China Sea drills
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- Philippine military said warships, coast guard vessels, surveillance and fighter aircraft from the US, Japan, and the Philippines conducted interoperability drills July 21-25, the latest in a series that has expanded in scope and frequency as Manila pushes back against China's sweeping claims.
- Chinese and Philippine governments traded blame over a July 20 incident at Second Thomas Shoal: Manila said a Chinese Coast Guard officer struck a Filipino sailor with a baton, while China countered that Philippine vessels attacked first and rammed Chinese boats.
- China fired water cannon at Philippine government vessels near Scarborough Shoal on both Thursday and Friday of the drill week, according to the Philippine Coast Guard; Beijing said it acted after Philippine vessels "insisted on intruding."
- Antonio Nafarrete, the Philippines' newly appointed armed forces chief of staff, visited the Philippine-occupied Thitu Island in the Spratlys on Saturday, telling troops roughly 480 km west of Palawan they were "vital to guarding" the outpost.
- China rejects a 2016 arbitral ruling invalidating its sovereignty claims over almost the entire South China Sea, and Chinese navy and coast guard vessels have operated in the exercise area during prior joint drills; the military did not disclose the current drills' exact location.
Why it matters: Three navies ran combined drills while baton strikes and water-cannon incidents unfolded at the very reefs the exercises were defending — turning the routine into a real-time test of the interoperability Manila, Tokyo, and Washington said they were building. Each flashpoint now happens against an active allied presence rather than a quiet backdrop, shrinking Beijing's window to escalate without witnesses from every direction.
