Uncrewed Chinese military aircraft tracked close to Vietnam coast, monitor group says

By Francesco Guarascio

HANOI (Reuters) - An uncrewed Chinese military aircraft flew with its tracker switched on close to Vietnam's coast last week, a South China Sea research body told Reuters, the first time in the group's five years of monitoring that Beijing has made such operations visible.

Friday's flight by the WZ-10 aircraft originated on Hainan island and returned there after following a path roughly 100 km (62 miles) from Vietnam's coastline to the southern city of Nha Trang, according to a map of its trajectory seen by Reuters and shared by Van Pham, general manager of the South China Sea Chronicle Initiative, who used publicly available tracking data.

It is unclear whether other such flights had been conducted earlier with trackers switched off.

The practice of turning trackers off is frequently used by Chinese vessels in neighbouring countries' exclusive economic zones (EEZs) - a maritime area between 12 and 200 nautical miles (370 km) from a country's coast, through which most movement is permissible under international law without prior authorisation, though is often closely watched.

Pham said other researchers, who have been long monitoring the South China Sea, confirmed with her it was the first time such a flight was made visible by the Chinese. Reuters could not independently verify past records of such flights.

The flight took place a few days after Hanoi announced it would hold its first joint coast guard exercises with the Philippines, which are due to start on August 9, and followed Vietnam's submission of a claim to the United Nations last month to extend its continental shelf in the South China Sea.

Vietnam's foreign and defence ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did the Chinese foreign ministry.

Chinese ships often enter Vietnam's EEZ and when transponders are turned on, their manoeuvres are tracked and occasionally criticised by Hanoi, as well as other claimant states in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims sovereignty over almost in its entirety.

The two Communist-ruled neighbours have strong economic ties and close political relations, but often clash over boundaries in the South China Sea, a crucial shipping waterway, with frequent skirmishes involving coast guard ships.

The flight took place in a delicate political period in Vietnam, which has experienced multiple changes at the top in recent months.

The South China Sea has for decades posed a diplomatic challenge for successive Vietnamese governments, balancing the need to uphold sovereignty while limiting damage to vital ties with Beijing.

On Saturday the Communist Party named former internal security chief To Lam as its general secretary, Vietnam's most powerful post, replacing the late leader Nguyen Phu Trong, who had passed away two weeks earlier.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio, additional reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi; Editing by Martin Petty and Michael Perry)