MANILA - In a move that promises to raise regional tensions, China recently
stepped up construction work in contested territories in the South China Sea.
In late September, Beijing announced plans to accelerate the building of Sansha
city, a newly formed administrative unit on Yongxing Island, also known as
Woody Island, in the disputed Paracels archipelago.
The city will oversee Beijing's
administration of the Paracel Islands, Macclesfield Bank, Scarborough Shoal,
and other assorted reefs, sandbanks and some 200 small uninhabited islets and
their surrounding waters in the contested Spratly Islands. The People's
Liberation Army (PLA), meanwhile, has announced without supplying details plans
to build a military garrison at Sansha, a move that threatens greater
militarization of the South China Sea's crucial trade lanes.
China's US$3-million construction
plan includes seven road projects with a total length of 5 kilometers, an
inter-island transportation network with docking facilities, and a desalination
unit with a 1,000-cubic-meter capacity to ensure fresh-water supplies for the
city's estimated 3,500 permanent inhabitants.
Sansha city was upgraded to
prefecture level on July 24 amid a naval standoff with the Philippines over
control of the adjacent Scarborough Shoal. China's announced building plans
have agitated the Philippines, which currently controls Pag-asa Island, one of
the biggest in the area, as well as Vietnam, which lays claim to the Paracels.
Both countries lodged official complaints about Sansha's upgraded status in
July.
Piqued by China's rising
assertiveness, improved fortifications and gradual administrative consolidation
over contested features in the Spratly Islands, Manila has responded in both
diplomatic and operational terms. In June, before Sansha's upgrade, Manila
summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to protest formally against growing
construction activities in areas Philippine officials have consistently argued
fall within their country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The complaint came soon after
Philippine military officials spotted a number of Chinese vessels in the area,
ranging from a salvage and research ship to cargo boats unloading construction
materials and building posts on Iroquois Bank in the vicinity of the Spratly
Islands, or just 125 nautical miles off the coast of the Philippines' southern
island of Palawan.
Manila has also raised its voice
against China's expressed plans to plant a "mega oil rig" in the
area, raising the possibility of China oil depots and installations near
Philippine shores. China is also reportedly planning to build an airstrip at
Subi Reef, just next to Philippine-controlled Pag-asa Island. The
3.7-kilometer-wide contested reef already houses two living quarters for
Chinese troops, two four-story buildings and a large radar dome.
The Armed Forces of the
Philippines have responded with mixed messages. Late last month, the
Philippines reportedly deployed 800 marines to Palawan, an island close to
contested areas in the South China Sea. However, Lieutenant-General Juancho
Sabban, head of the AFP's Western Command, denied the reports on October 1,
saying there was an "apparent miscommunication" by military
officials. He said the recent deployment of fewer than 100 personnel to Palawan
was "defensive", while other commanders said the move was part of
routine plans to improve basic maritime patrols.
"These two battalions which
arrived recently will be augmenting protection of our islands. We are just on a
defensive posture and are ensuring the defense of our islands. It is better to
defend than retake islands once other claimants occupy them," Sabban said,
making veiled reference to Mischief Reef, which China seized from the
Philippines by force in 1995. To bolster coordination and command over deployed
forces, the Philippines opened a new Marine Brigade headquarters in nearby
Palawan.
At the same time, the Philippines
recently said it might fire on Chinese surveillance drones that enter territory
it claims in the South China Sea. Yang Yujun, an official with China's Defense
Ministry, affirmed plans to use unmanned drones to monitor activity in disputed
areas of the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal, the Spratly
Islands, and their adjacent waters. Yang asserted China's "indisputable
sovereignty" over those areas in announcing its use of drones.
For almost two decades, the
Philippines has watched anxiously as China has fortified its claims in the
South China Sea. In 1995, just three years after the closure of US bases in the
Philippines, China seized control of Mischief Reef from Philippine forces. Soon
thereafter, China built structures resembling military installations on the
reef, though Beijing claimed at the time they were shelters for fishermen.
Two-pronged approach
Since that armed confrontation,
China had taken a more sophisticated approach to consolidating its claims, combining
the carrot of multilateral and regional diplomacy with the stick of
increasingly aggressive bilateral showdowns with smaller claimant states.
Paramilitary vessels and fishing boats implicitly backed by conventional
military forces, military fortifications built up by elements of the PLA Navy,
and quasi-civilian administrative projects have all bid to crowd out other
claimant states, especially Vietnam and the Philippines.
In 2002, China and the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the Declaration of the
Code of Parties in the South China Sea, which calls broadly for peaceful and
diplomatic resolution of territorial disputes. The non-binding agreement
explicitly prohibits the construction of military fortifications in the region,
a provision China has consistently violated, Philippine and Vietnamese
officials have argued.
The Philippines is perhaps the
only country that has failed to make any significant improvement of its
structures in the nine islands and reefs it directly controls in the Spratly
Islands. Malaysia, another claimant state, has built spas and diving resorts on
the Layang-Layang Reef it controls. China and Vietnam have built
fortifications, watchtowers, lighthouses, airstrips and even buildings powered
by solar panels in their respective areas of control.
Most Philippine structures in the
area date back to the 1960s and '70s and are poorly maintained and withering,
diminishing the operational capacity as well as the morale of Philippine forces
stationed in the area. Philippine officials cite their commitment to the 2002
conduct agreement as a reason for their lagging investment in maintaining and
improving its structures in the Spratly Islands. Commentators have pointed
toward a lack of strategic foresight as the AFP has focused more on internal
threats caused by various insurgencies across the country.
China's construction will also
fortify its claims at the international level. According to some legal experts,
assuming its territorial claims are eventually submitted for international
arbitration by bodies such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
(ITLOS), exercising "effective and continuous sovereignty/control over
occupied features" is a more critical factor than "historical
claims". So far, China has rejected international arbitration on the
grounds that its claims over the area are "inherent" and
"indisputable".
China's interpretation of the key
legal regime concerning maritime disputes, namely the United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), takes a divergent interpretation of Article 121
on "regime of islands". Southeast Asian claimants such as the
Philippines look at the majority of features in the South China Sea as
"uninhabitable" and therefore only able to lay claim to 12 nautical
miles of territorial waters. By installing relatively large-scale structures capable
of housing humans, China seems determined to turn these features into habitable
islands.
The implication is significant
for the Philippines and other claimant states. Through a more liberal
interpretation of the UNCLOS' Article 121 China can feasibly claim 200-mile
EEZs from each of its occupied islands, allowing it to lay legal claim to
oil-and-gas-rich areas as far south as Indonesia's Natuna Islands as well as
the Philippines-claimed Reed Bank.
Strategic analysts say China's
buildup could also serve as a foundation for fortifications that enable
large-scale future military deployments. China's Defense Ministry announced in
July that Sansha city would be the operational center of a new military
garrison in the South China Sea, though details of the plan have been scarce.
Operationally, such a garrison would allow China to push its claims further
into Philippine-claimed EEZs.
The Philippines has responded to
these perceived threats by strengthening strategic ties with the US and calling
for outside intervention, including from the UN, moves that have likely
undermined Manila's simultaneous diplomatic efforts to constrain China's rapid
buildup in the contested territories. On October 8, the Philippines began 10
days of joint military maneuvers with some 2,600 US troops and naval vessels,
including so-called amphibious landing exercises.
Meanwhile, Philippine Foreign
Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario called on the UN on October 2 to intervene
in the conflict, calling on it to fulfill its mission of "protecting the
weak from the strong". At the same time, ASEAN members circulated a new
draft of the South China Sea code of conduct during a sideline meeting between
ASEAN ministers at the UN General Assembly meeting this month.
Meanwhile, anxieties over China's
intentions are building among Philippine military planners. "Every time we
take periodic pictures of all the islands in the Spratlys, we notice some
changes, we observe changes in structures," Sabban said, referring to
recent Chinese construction at Sansha.
Richard Javad Heydarian
Business & Investment Opportunities
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