The Philippines will purchase an anti-ship cruise missile system from India in a deal aimed at deterring Chinese militancy in the Indo-Pacific region.
Indian defence contractor BrahMos will sell three batteries of the weapon to the Philippines government under a $520 million deal, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The missile – developed by India and Russia – has a range of 290km and flies almost three times the speed of sound at Mach 2.8, one Indian official said.
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Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in a Facebook post the Philippines will acquire the weapons to boost its coastal defences.
Security experts say the missiles will help deter foreign vessels from encroaching on the country's 370km exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Last year hundreds of Chinese vessels, which the Philippines claim are linked to China's navy, were moored inside Manila's EEZ.
Dotted with small islands, reefs and shoals, the South China Sea is a crucial shipping route and home to a messy territorial dispute that pits multiple countries against one another.
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Tensions in the contested waters have ratcheted up since 2014 as China has turned sandbars into islands, equipping them with airfields, ports and weapons systems and warned US warships and aircraft to stay away from them.
Beijing's increasing assertiveness in the Asia Pacific region has also driven a major increase in Taiwan's defence spending.
Last week the disputed island's parliament passed a spending bill of almost $12 billion for upgraded military equipment, reports news agency AFP.
Taiwan and mainland China have been separately governed since the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war more than 70 years ago.
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Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy but the mainland's ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to view the island as an inseparable part of its territory – despite having never controlled it.
Last year Beijing stepped up the pressure on Taiwan.
Chinese naval exercises were held in waters around the island and a record number Chinese military aircraft flew near Taiwan.
