The plane was flying near Subi Reef, a “militarized” island in the disputed Spratly Islands, when it spotted the flares, the statement said.

A similar incident occurred on August 19, when a Chinese fighter jet “performed irresponsible and dangerous maneuvers” and fired flares “at a dangerously close range of approximately 15 meters from the BFAR Grand Caravan aircraft,” it further stated.

“The Chinese fighter jet was not provoked, but its actions demonstrated dangerous intent that endangered the safety of personnel on board the BFAR aircraft,” the statement said.

It follows an agreement between China and the Philippines in July that aimed to ease tensions over the Second Thomas Shoal, another reef in the Spratly Islands.

China claims sovereignty over the Second Thomas Shoal and most of the South China Sea, but an international tribunal ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s claims to the waters within its borders ““nine-dash line” had no legal basis.

The Philippines laid claim to the reef in 1999 by deliberately running the ship BRP Sierra Madre aground there.

Since then, the reef has repeatedly been a flashpoint in relations between the countries, becoming the focus of a series of increasingly violent clashes between the two.

In May, the International Crisis Group said that “maritime relations between the two countries have never been as volatile as they have been over the past seven months.”

In early July, Beijing anchored the world’s largest coast guard ship in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, in what Tarriela called “an intimidation of the Chinese coast guard.”