China on Wednesday carried out a combat patrol to test "strike capabilities" near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, a flashpoint area which is within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.
Beijing has continued to press its claims to almost the entire South China Sea despite an international tribunal ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
Scarborough Shoal is 240 kilometers (150 miles) west of the Philippines' main island of Luzon and nearly 900 kilometers from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan. The Philippines also refers to Scarborough Shoal as Panatag Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc.
China in 2012 used coastguard vessels to take control of the shoal, a triangular chain of reefs and rocks that are part of a rich fishing ground and had long been used by Filipino fishermen as a safe harbor.