Chinese Navy Persistently Shadowing US Ally’s Missions, Official Says

Chinese coast guard and paramilitary forces were present at nearly all the Philippines’ rotation and resupply (RoRe) missions to South China Sea’s hottest flash point, a Philippine naval official said on Tuesday. The Southeast Asian country’s navy and coast guard undertook 28 such missions to remote outposts in the sea’s Spratly Islands, half of which were to the fiercely disputed Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippines stations a small group of marines on a rusting 80-year-old warship deliberately grounded at the otherwise uninhabited atoll in 1999 to stake Manila’s claim. China claims sovereignty over Second Thomas Shoal, as it does most…