By Laurie Chen and Mikhail Flores
BEIJING/MANILA (Reuters) – China’s defence ministry on Thursday strongly condemned the deployment of a U.S. intermediate vary missile system within the northern Philippines throughout army drills in April, saying it “introduced large dangers of struggle into the area”.
Defence Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian instructed a press briefing in Beijing that China remained extremely vigilant and opposed the deployment, the primary within the Indo-Pacific area.
“America and Philippine practices put the whole area underneath the fireplace of the US (and) introduced large dangers of struggle into the area,” Wu mentioned, including it “significantly undermined” regional peace.
“Intermediate-range missiles are strategic and offensive weapons with a powerful Chilly Battle color,” Wu mentioned.
China deploys its personal superior intermediate-range missiles as a part of an in depth standard ballistic missile arsenal.
The U.S. mentioned final month it had deployed its Typhon missile system to the Philippines as a part of their Balikatan or “shoulder-to-shoulder” army drills.
Philippine army official Col. Michael Logico mentioned in April that the missile system, which may hearth Tomahawk land assault and SM-6 missiles, was dropped at Laoag metropolis in Ilocos Norte province within the northern Philippines.
However officers didn’t say if the weapon system was transported elsewhere, or if it stays within the Philippines.
The Philippines and U.S. army didn’t hearth the missile system through the workout routines, however Logico mentioned it was shipped to check the feasibility of transporting the 40-ton weapon system by air.
A Philippines army spokesperson couldn’t be reached for touch upon Thursday.
The annual drills this 12 months concerned round 16,000 Filipinos and U.S. troopers, a few of which have been staged in northern Philippine islands close to Taiwan and in western waters going through the South China Sea, the place China is in dispute with the Philippines and different regional claimants.
The workout routines irked China on the time and it warned of destabilisation when nations outdoors the area “flex muscular tissues and stoke confrontation”.
Philippine and U.S. officers had mentioned the workout routines have been meant to enhance interoperability between their forces and weren’t directed at any third nation.
(Reporting by Laurie Chen in Beijing and Karen Lema and Mikhail Flores in Manila; Writing by Greg Torode; Enhancing by David Holmes)
