The incident marks the second confrontation this week between Manila and Beijing over disputed South China Sea islands.
China’s military said it drove away three Philippines aircraft “illegally” flying over the disputed Spratly Islands, marking the second aerial incident this week involving Beijing and Manila in the South China Sea.
A spokesperson for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Southern Theatre Command, Air Force Colonel Tian Junli, said the military had chased away two small Cessna 208 planes and a light N-22 aircraft on Thursday.
The Southern Theatre Command said Manila’s aircraft had acted provocatively in a bid to assert the Philippines’ “illegal claims” over the small archipelago, according to Chinese state media.
“The Philippines has disregarded the facts and repeatedly stigmatised, hyped and smeared China’s legitimate and lawful rights-protection actions,” the Southern Theatre Command added.
The Philippines claims a northwest segment of the Spratly Islands, an archipelago of 100 islands and reefs, while China claims all of it.
The incident follows an earlier close encounter on Tuesday when a Chinese military helicopter flew within 3 metres (10 feet) of a Philippines patrol plane flying over the Scarborough Shoal, a rocky outcrop in the South China Sea surrounded by rich fishing grounds.
While the Scarborough Shoal lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone – an area spanning 200 nautical miles (370km) from the shore – it has been controlled by Beijing since 2012, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
A 30-minute standoff between the Chinese naval helicopter and the plane was witnessed by foreign media travelling in the aircraft, which belonged to the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
The Associated Press reported the Chinese helicopter pilot was warned they were acting dangerously and endangering the lives of crew and passengers.
Following the incident, the Southern Theatre Command accused Manila of pursuing its “illegal sovereignty claim with military provocations and mislead[ing] the international understanding by hyping up [which] is doomed to fail”.
Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, placing it in regular conflict with neighbouring countries including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
Since 2013, the Chinese military has built 20 outposts in the Paracel Islands, another disputed archipelago in the South China Sea, and seven outposts in the Spratly Islands, according to the Asia Maritime Initiative.
Last week, China also entered Australia’s exclusive economic zone, sending three Chinese warships within 150 nautical miles (278km) of Sydney.
Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, told the media the event was “unusual but not unprecedented”, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday that China had warned of potential “live fire” naval drills in international waters off Australia’s eastern coast, and commercial flights were instructed to avoid the area.
