Envoy Asif Ahmad says Britain would ignore alerts issued in international airspace after Filipino pilots say China warned them away from disputed area

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The British ambassador to the Philippines has said Britain would oppose any attempt to restrict freedom of navigation and overflight in disputed areas of the South China Sea, after Filipino pilots said they were sent “intimidating” radio warnings while flying near artificial islands made by China.

“If a British aircraft, civilian or military, was intercepted and not allowed to fly over a space which we regard as international, we will simply ignore it,” Asif Ahmad, the UK’s envoy in Manila, said.

Britain’s intervention in the row over China’s growing military presence in the region comes in response to concern over possible attempts to restrict freedom of navigation and overflight near reefs that China has turned into artificial islands over the past two years.

On Monday, the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, warned Beijing to avoid pursuing territorial claims in a way that could lead to conflict with the US, which conducted naval manoeuvres near two artificial islands in October 2015.

Turnbull cited Chinese president Xi Jinping’s desire to avoid the “Thucydides trap” – the danger that rivalry between a rising and established power can escalate into war – to call for a lowering of tensions.

“If avoiding the ‘Thucydides trap’ is a core objective of China’s strategy, as President Xi insists it is, then we would hope that China’s actions will be carefully calculated to make conflict less likely, not more,” Turnbull said in a speech in Washington ahead of a meeting with the president, Barack Obama, on Tuesday.

“The legitimacy of claims to reefs and shoals should be a secondary consideration when that objective is focused on,” Turnbull added.

Officials from the Philippines civil aviation authority said the Chinese navy had issued two warnings when they flew a Cessna plane close to a Chinese-built island in the South China Sea earlier in January.

The incident occurred as the plane was heading to the Philippines-occupied island of Pagasa to conduct an engineering survey ahead of the installation of a civilian flight-tracking system later this year.

Pagasa, home to a small fishing community and Filipino troops, is close to Subi Reef, one of seven reefs in the disputed Spratly archipelago that China has turned into islands using dredged sand.

As the Cessna approached Pagasa to land, a message was received over an emergency radio channel, according to Eric Apolonio, a Philippine civil aviation authority official. The message warned: “Foreign military aircraft, this is the Chinese navy. You are threatening the security of our station.”

Apolonio said the warning caused “apprehension” among those on the plane, since “you never know, we can be fired upon”.

Britain has joined the US, Japan and countries with rival claims to the islands, including the Philippines and Vietnam, in warning of the territorial dispute’s potential to threaten regional stability and freedom of navigation.

Chinese officials say they have completed building the island and are now constructing buildings and runways to ensure safe civilian sea travel.

China’s test landings on a 3,000-metre (9,800-ft) runway on Fiery Cross reef earlier this month have fuelled concerns it could be about to declare an air defence identification zone (Adiz).

A similar Adiz declaration by Beijing over the East China Sea in late 2013 prompted an angry response from Japan, which is in dispute with Beijing over ownership of the Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyu in China.

China has acknowledged that the islands could have military uses, but insists it has the right to build in areas it says are Chinese territory.

