China lighthouses spark PH opposition
THE PHILIPPINES yesterday slammed China’s unacceptable attempts to bolster its claims in the South China Sea, after learning that Beijing had built and lit up two lighthouses in the Spratly archipelago.
“We are strongly opposed to China’s construction and operation of lighthouses on Cuarteron Reef and Johnson South Reef,” Charles Jose, spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), said in a statement, using the international names of Calderon Reef and Mabini Reef.
The two reefs are in the West Philippine Sea, part of the South China Sea within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone, but taken over by China and built up as artificial islands along with four other reefs in the heavily disputed waters.
Jose said the Chinese actions were “obviously intended to change the actual conditions on the ground and aimed at bolstering China’s territorial claim in the South China Sea.”
“We will not accept these unilateral actions as a fait accompli,” he said.
But at press time yesterday, Jose was still checking whether the DFA had lodged a formal protest with China over the lighthouses.
China, which is building artificial islands in the South China Sea to bolster its claim to nearly the entire 3.5-million-square-kilometer waterway, inaugurated the two 50-meter-high lighthouses last week, drawing a protest from Vietnam, which also claims the two reefs.
De facto recognition
Chinese officials say the lighthouses will help maritime search and rescue, navigational security and disaster relief.
But experts, diplomats and foreign naval officers say the lighthouses represent a shrewd move to help buttress China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
While the navies of the United States and other countries mostly rely on electronic instruments to confirm their ships’ positions, visual fixes from lighthouses are still used under certain conditions.
Any such moves would play into a strategy “geared to bolstering China’s claims by forcing other countries to effectively recognize Chinese sovereignty by their actions,” Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, said last week.
“If naval and other ships from other countries, including the United States, would be obliged to use and log them, it could be taken as de facto recognition of China’s sovereignty,” Storey said.
The United States and its Pacific allies Australia, Japan and the Philippines, as well as Vietnam and Malaysia, have denounced China’s actions, expressing concern that the artificial islands Beijing is building in the South China Sea may be used for military purposes.
China has offered assurances that its intentions are peaceful, but recent satellite images published by US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies have shown that at least three of the man-made islands have airstrips that could receive military planes.
US challenge
US officials say the US Navy is considering sending warships to within the 22-km limit that China has set for sovereignty to show that the United States does not recognize the Chinese claims in the sea, where $5 trillion in global trade passes every year.
Vietnam has fought naval battles with China over contested territory in the South China Sea. The Philippines, which has one of the weakest militaries in the region, has taken its territorial dispute with China to the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague for resolution.
China has refused to participate in the proceedings and said it will not recognize any ruling by the tribunal.
The DFA says it hopes the UN-tribunal will be able to come out with a decision by next year.
Besides the Philippines and Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia also have overlapping claims with China in the South China Sea.
DFA officials told a Senate hearing in May that the department had filed eight diplomatic protests since April 2014 against China’s island-building in the South China Sea.
The DFA had also filed three diplomatic protests against Chinese harassment of Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea, they said.
The Philippines and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have slammed the Chinese actions as a violation of an agreement that China signed with the bloc in 2002 for maintaining peace by keeping the status quo in the sea.
The Philippines also says that China’s land reclamation in the South China Sea has damaged the environment, causing $100 million in losses to Southeast Asian economies every year.