A panel of global security experts concluded in 2019 that the rapid expansion of China’s Coast Guard gives Beijing the means to shift its sea expansion aims from aspirational to operational.
In an article published by the US Naval Institute—China’s Coast Guard Enforcing Its Blue Water Territorial Expansion—John Grady quoted Greg Poling, director of CSIS’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, who said: “The Chinese have transitioned from turning coral reefs into islands to having them become effectively homeports for Chinese Coast Guard vessels and forward landing bases for maritime patrol aircraft. They have also installed sophisticated mobile air and maritime defense systems as well as jamming equipment on them.”
In addition to a permanent coast guard and air presence, “300 naval militia vessels are operating every day in the South China Sea,” Poling said. “They use manmade islands as home ports to send ships out to contest Vietnam’s claims to sea beds holding energy resources and minerals and contest Philippine fishing rights to work waters in its economic zone. The objective in all this activity is to make it politically risky for civilians to operate in their own Economic Zones,” he added.
China’s disagreeable activities in the South China Sea include bullying Vietnam and Malaysia over ocean drilling, and ramming Philippine fishing vessels near the Scarborough Shoal.
On Tuesday, November 16, Chinese Coast Guard vessels attacked two civilian ships chartered to bring food supply to Filipino soldiers in Ayungin Shoal in West Philippines. The two civilian boats, Unaiza Mae 1 and Unaiza Mae 3, were in the shoal for a resupply mission for soldiers guarding the shoal when the two Chinese ships attacked them with water cannons lasting for at least an hour, according to Philippine National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr.The soldiers have been guarding the Second Thomas Shoal located 105 nautical miles southwest of Palawan aboard the partly sunken ship BRP Sierra Madre, which the Philippines is using as a military outpost.
Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. protested the attack and expressed the country’s “outrage, condemnation and protest” and demanded the Chinese ships to “back off.” He said the boats were “public vessels” covered by the 1951 Philippines-US Mutual Defense Treaty.
The United States called China’s action a threat to peace and security in the region and an affront to international maritime norms, as it reminded Beijing of the existing US defense treaty with the Philippines.The US State Department said: “The United States stands with our ally, the Philippines, in the face of this escalation that directly threatens regional peace and stability, escalates regional tensions, infringes upon freedom of navigation in the South China Sea as guaranteed under international law, and undermines the rules-based international order.” (Read, US warns China vs threat to peace in SCS after Ayungin Shoal attack, in the BusinessMirror, November 20, 2021).
Despite the strong protest made by Secretary Locsin, Beijing accused the Philippine boats of “trespassing”. A statement issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry dismissed the attack, which it defended as it insisted China’s sovereignty over the Second Thomas Shoal.
Secretary Locsin said he respects China’s right to say whatever it wants to say. But he drew the line when Chinese Coast Guard used water cannon on the Philippine boats. “It’s a free world; we can both claim and say whatever we want. It is what we do that matters. It all turns on the water cannon,” he said.
The US told China that it has no legal rights over the shoal as had been declared by the July 12, 2016 ruling of the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal which was constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. The ruling, an offshoot of the case brought by the Philippines to challenge China’s excessive claims in the South China Sea, rejected Beijing claims to Second Thomas Shoal and to waters determined to be part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
“The People’s Republic of China should not interfere with lawful Philippine activities in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone,” the US said.
China is a member of many international organizations, holding key positions such as a permanent membership on UN Security Council. It should promote rule-based international order in the South China Sea. Unfortunately, recent developments in the contested waters show that the Chinese government has no scruples. They have no respect for international law or international borders. China is showing the world it has no intention to change its image as a regional bully because of its sweeping claims of sovereignty over the whole South China Sea—and its estimated 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.