All mine can’t apply
China issued its oft-repeated warning that the government is playing with fire in increasing its military presence in islands near Taiwan.
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Daily TribuneChina issued its oft-repeated warning that the government is playing with fire in increasing its military presence in islands near Taiwan.
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The protection of Filipino fishermen earning their livelihood in Philippine waters is a responsibility of the government that China is trying to deny through its intrusive patrols in the West Philippine Sea.
Just the other day, the Philippine Coast Guard reported that vessels of its mainland counterpart executed “dangerous and blocking” maneuvers during routine PCG patrols near Scarborough Shoal.
During a nine-day patrol near the shoal, the BRP Teresa Magbanua was shadowed by four Chinese coast guard ships more than 40 times, the PCG reported.
Going by the Philippines’ aggressive transparency strategy, the PCG provided the media with snapshots and footage of the encounters.
Four Chinese maritime militia vessels were also present near the shoal during the incursions by the foreign ships.
CCG ships are practically refitted battleships that were painted white, based on their enormity.
CCG spokesperson Gan Yu said the PCG ship “illegally intruded” into the waters “adjacent to China’s Huangyan Island (Scarborough Shoal) many times.”
Gan said his country’s vessels adopted “route control and forced evacuation measures” against the comparatively tiny PCG ship, “in accordance with the law.”
China is citing, however, the law that it crafted instead of international conventions on delineating sea boundaries, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, which was the basis of the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration award that favored the Philippines.
The arbitral tribunal invalidated the nine-dash line, now the ten-dash line, historical claim of China that was found to have no basis in any conventional law.
“The China Coast Guard has consistently carried out rights protection and law enforcement activities in waters under China’s jurisdiction in accordance with the law and resolutely safeguarded national sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” Gan said.
Gaute Friis, an analyst at think tank SeaLight of Stanford University, said China’s intrusive patrolling is part of its gray zone tactics.
China routinely patrols within the exclusive economic zones of other states and such maneuvers are a key component of China’s strategy to reinforce its expansive maritime claims in disputed waters, Friis said.
He said that by doing so, China aims to establish a continuous presence and gradually normalize its maritime activities in these areas.
“These patrols demonstrate Beijing’s resolve to create de facto jurisdiction over areas granted to other nations under the 1982 UNCLOS. While China signed UNCLOS in 1996, it considers international laws as subordinate to its historic rights’ over the disputed maritime area.”
According to Friis, the persistent presence of CCG vessels could intimidate other claimant states and discourage them from challenging China’s maritime assertions.
Thus, through such patrolling activities, China effectively employs a strategy of incremental encroachment to strengthen its territorial claims, gradually altering the status quo in its favor.
Such a scenario of expanded Chinese intrusion is already playing out as its mouthpieces are also questioning the activities of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the country’s northernmost tip, in the Batanes group of islands.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. has pushed back against China, saying that “Batanes is Philippine territory and China has no business warning the Philippines about what it does within its territory.”
China issued its oft-repeated warning that the government is playing with fire in increasing its military presence in islands near Taiwan.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Taiwan is “at the heart of China’s core interests and is a red line and bottom line that must not be crossed.”
The Department of National Defense, in response, restated its mandate “to secure the sovereignty of the State and the integrity of the national territory as enshrined in the Philippine Constitution.”
A maxim of the dreaded Nazi regime during World War 2: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” applies to China’s expansive claims.
