China: Vessels in disputed sea are fishing boats

Chinese vessels gathered near a disputed reef in the South China Sea are “fishing boats” sheltering from poor weather, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday, a day after the Philippines described their presence as an incursion.

China claims almost the entirety of the resource-rich sea, and has been accused by the United States of efforts to “intimidate, coerce and threaten other nations” to control it.

The Philippines on Sunday said more than 200 militia boats were spotted “in line formation” at the boomerang-shaped Whitsun Reef around 320km west of Palawan Island on March 7.

Manila called on China to “recall these boats violating our maritime rights and encroaching into our sovereign territory”.

But Beijing disputed the claim, saying that “for a long time, Chinese fishing boats have been fishing in waters near the reef”, which it said was a part of the contested Spratly Islands.

“Recently, due to conditions at sea, some Chinese fishing boats have been sheltering from the wind near the Whitsun Reef,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said.

“We believe this is very normal, and hope all parties can consider it rationally.”

The Philippines’ Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin tweeted he had lodged a diplomatic protest over the vessels.

Beijing often invokes the socalled nine-dash line to justify its apparent historic rights over most of the South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei.