US fears Chinese buildup on Panatag
Shoal lies 200 kilometers west of Masinloc, Zambales
WASHINGTON—The United States has seen Chinese activity around a reef only 200 kilometers off Zambales province that China seized from the Philippines nearly four years ago, that could be a precursor to more land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea, the US Navy chief said on Thursday.
The head of US naval operations, Adm. John Richardson, expressed concern that an international court ruling expected in coming weeks on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims could be a trigger for Beijing to declare an exclusion zone in the busy trade route.
Richardson told Reuters the United States was weighing responses to such a move.
Richardson said the US military had seen Chinese activity around Scarborough Shoal about 200 km west of the Subic Bay naval base in Zambales in the northern part of the disputed Spratly chain.
“I think we see some surface ship activity and those sorts of things, survey type of activity, going on. That’s an area of concern ... a next possible area of reclamation,” he said.
Richardson said it was unclear if the activity near the reef, one of the crucial disputed land formations between China and the Philippines that China seized in 2012, was related to the pending arbitration decision.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.
Scarborough Shoal, known as Panatag Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines, lies about 218 km (118 nautical miles) west of Zambales province and within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer (200 nautical mile) exclusive economic zone, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). It is 550 nautical miles, or more than 1,000 km, off the closest Chinese coast on Hainan island.
In April 2012, a Philippine warship tried to arrest Chinese fishermen, whose presence in the shoal was illegal. The Chinese Coast Guard intervened, resulting in a standoff that went on for two months.
China says it has owned Scarborough for centuries, based on what it calls its historical rights to the area.
AFP ‘unaware’
The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Friday said it was verifying the US Navy report about Chinese activities in Panatag Shoal.
“We are verifying the report with our concerned agencies,” said Assistant Secretary Charles Jose, the DFA spokesperson.
Just last week, the DFA criticized China’s plan to launch civilian flights from the contested Paracels.
A Philippine Armed Forces official who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media said he was unaware of a Chinese survey ship in the area.
“China already has de facto control over the shoal since 2012 and they always have two to three coast guard ships there. We are also monitoring their activities and movements there,” the official told reporters.
“There are no indications China will reclaim Scarborough Shoal,” he said.
Richardson said China’s pursuit of South China Sea territory, which has included massive land reclamation to create artificial islands elsewhere in the Spratlys, threatened to reverse decades of open access and introduce new “rules” that required countries to obtain permission before transiting those waters.
He said that was a worry given that 30 percent of the world’s trade passes through the region.
Asked whether China could respond to the ruling by the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague by declaring an air defense identification zone, or Adiz, as it did farther north in the East China Sea in 2013, Richardson said: “It’s definitely a concern.
“We will just have to see what happens,” he said. “We think about contingencies and ... responses.”
Richardson said the United States planned to continue carrying out freedom-of-navigation exercises within 22 km (12 nautical miles) of disputed South China Sea geographical features to underscore its concerns about keeping sea lanes open.
Joint patrols?
The United States responded to the East China Sea Adiz by flying B-52 bombers through the zone in a show of force in November 2013.
Richardson said he was struck by how China’s increasing militarization of the South China Sea had increased the willingness of other countries in the region to work together.
India and Japan have joined the US Navy in the Malabar naval exercise since 2014, and were due to take part again this year in an even more complex exercise that will take place in an area close to the East and South China Seas.
South Korea, Japan and the United States were also working together more closely than ever before, he said.
Richardson said the United States would welcome the participation of other countries in joint patrols in the South China Sea, but those decisions needed to be made by the countries in question.
He said the US military saw good opportunities to build and rebuild relationships with countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines and India, which have all realized the importance of safeguarding the freedom of the seas.
He cited India’s recent hosting of an international fleet review that included 75 ships from 50 navies, and said the US was exploring opportunities to increase its use of ports in the Philippines and Vietnam, among others—including the former US naval base at Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay.
But he said Washington needed to proceed judiciously rather than charging in “very fast and very heavy,” given the enormous influence and importance of the Chinese economy in the region.
“We have to be sophisticated in how we approach this so that we don’t force any of our partners into an uncomfortable position where they have to make tradeoffs that are not in their best interest,” he said.
“We would hope to have an approach that would ... include us as a primary partner but not necessarily to the exclusion of other partners in the region.”