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China starts "combat ready" patrols in disputed seas

China risks isolation if it occupies Spratlys

by Jojo Malig, ABS-CBNnews.com
Posted at 07/18/2012 7:53 PM | Updated as of 07/18/2012 9:56 PM

MANILA, Philippines - China risks being a pariah in the global community if it attacks other countries claiming parts of the disputed Spratly Islands, an analyst warned on Wednesday.

Greg Poling, research associate of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies' Southeast Asia Program, said Beijing's military ambitions in the region are held back by its economic, diplomatic, and political interests overseas.

"From the Chinese perspective, Beijing knows that it could easily occupy every disputed feature in the South China Sea, but it cannot do so without causing wide and probably irrevocable damage to its interests abroad," Poling told ABS-CBNNews.com.

"China would be rightfully seen as the aggressor in such a situation, as well as in violation of its own multilateral and bilateral treaty obligations," he said. "Any hopes of China being seen as a responsible member of the international community or a benign rising power would go out the window."

"As long as aggression was limited to the Spratlys themselves, outside powers would be unlikely to intervene militarily, but China would find itself isolated and almost necessarily in the midst of a new Cold War as the United States and its partners both in the Asia Pacific and Europe would fear future Chinese aggression," Poling added.

He said that although there is little chance of a full-scale shooting war between China and the Philippines or Vietnam, "small-scale skirmishes are not out of the question."

Johnson Reef clash

Vietnam and China have engaged in such armed naval skirmishes in the past years, including a deadly battle in waters near Johnson Reef and Fiery Cross Reef in 1988.

More than 70 Vietnamese troops were killed while 2 of their ships were sunk and another was heavily damaged in the skirmish.

It resulted in China gaining control of the nearby Johnson South Reef, which the Philippines calls Mabini Reef.

Dr. Richard Cronin, senior associate and director of the Henry Stimson Center's Southeast Asia Program, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that the deadly outcome of the naval battle was the reason why the Philippine Navy decided to avoid a confrontation with the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy when the latter occupied Mischief Reef in 1994.

Poling said the Philippines and Vietnam are avoiding taking the People's Liberation Army head-on into open conflict over incidents in the Spratlys and the Paracels. "The United States, as a treaty ally of the Philippines, also has a stake in pushing all sides to avoid a shooting war," he said.

He said other countries should not also immediately jump to conclusions regarding China’s naval intentions in the region.

"Clearly, maneuvering warships and the like through the South China Sea intentionally sends a message to the other claimants. And naval maneuvers by China have increased in recent years. That said, there is nothing in international law to forbid China from operating warships within 60 nautical miles of anyone’s coast (as long as they are farther than 12 nautical miles, which is the limit of territorial waters)," he said.

Scarborough standoff

Poling cited the Scarborough Shoal standoff, which he believes was caused by the Philippines sending a military, instead of a Coast Guard patrol vessel to the area.

"China has been careful to avoid militarizing the disputes by using its civil, not naval, ships in confrontations like Scarborough. It was the Philippines that chose to send its naval flagship to perform the purely civilian job of interdicting illegal fishermen at Scarborough," he said.

"Beijing still chose to respond with its civilian agencies. If there is a message in that, it is that China does not need to use its naval forces to throw its weight around in the region," he told ABS-CBNNews.com.

He said what the Philippines "cannot afford is another Scarborough Shoal" (standoff).

"If that incident proved anything, it is that the Philippines is in no position to confront China’s civilian maritime forces, much less its naval forces (which we should keep in mind played no part at Scarborough)," Poling said.

"The Philippines should, and is, seeking to upgrade its maritime awareness capabilities and its civilian and naval assets in the long run. But in the short-term, it will have to rely on bilateral diplomacy to manage incidents with China, and seek some sort of united front with most, if not all, of its ASEAN counterparts to counter China’s intimidation tactics," he added.

More Chinese fishermen in Spratlys

Poling said the Philippines should expect that increased activity of Chinese fishing vessels in the disputed waters will continue to remain a source of tension.

"As fishing grounds near China become depleted, fishermen from Hainan and throughout southern China are traveling farther afield," he said.

"This is only being promoted by Beijing, which is rumored to be paying fishermen on Hainan to fish in the Spratlys, where it would be unprofitable to operate if not for government payouts," he added.

"This is growing even more dangerous as China’s various civilian maritime agencies seem determined to protect their fishermen’s access to all part of the South China Sea with whatever means are necessary. All this means we can expect fishing confrontations, which were already regular occurrences, to become even more frequent and more public," Poling said.

"Clearly the Philippines will not stop patrolling the waters it considers its own. The result is probably going to be frequent diplomatic spats between the two sides," he said. "This has been the status quo in the Paracels for decades, with China arresting Vietnamese fishermen with regularity, Vietnam protesting, and a diplomatic solution being found."

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/07/18/12/china-risks-isolation-if-it-occupies-spratlys
 
DFA: China boats blocking PHL vessels from Panatag Shoal
BY MICHAELA DEL CALLAR July 18, 2012 9:31pm

China has blocked Philippine ships and fishing vessels from the lagoon of the disputed Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal in West Philippine Sea by setting up barriers to its entry point, a top Department of Foreign Affairs official said Wednesday.

In its boldest display of assertion to date over the area, China had placed barriers at the entrance of the lagoon of Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal, DFA Undersecretary Erlinda Basilio said.

China has reneged on its commitment to remove the barriers and also to withdraw its vessels inside the shoal, which Philippines officials say is well within Manila’s territory.

“The Philippines forged an agreement with a neighboring country for the simultaneous pullout of all vessels inside the shoal, which we undertook in good faith last June 4,” Basilio said, referring to China.

China has agreed to remove the blockade, she said.

To this day, Basilio said “the neighboring country has not fulfilled its obligations under the agreement and has maintained its ships inside and outside the shoal, as well as its barrier, in its aim to establish effective control and jurisdiction in the shoal and surrounding waters.”

The Chinese blockades comprised of a long rope and fishing nets held by buoys from end to end.

GMA News Online contacted the Chinese embassy in Manila, but there was no response as of this posting.

Several Chinese dinghies were tied together and used to block the lagoon’s entrance, Philippine officials who requested not to be named as they were not allowed to speak to the media told GMA News Online.

Manila and Beijing have been locked in a tense standoff in the area since April 10. Last month, President Benigno Aquino III pulled out Philippine vessels in the face off with Chinese ships due to bad weather.

The impasse started when Chinese ships blocked the arrest of fishermen, who were caught poaching by Philippine authorities.

China and the Philippines and are both claiming ownership over Bajo de Masinloc.

Manila says the rich fishing ground falls within its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

China, which claims almost the whole of the resource-rich West Philippine (South China) Sea, maintains Bajo de Masinloc is “an integral part of Chinese territory,” citing ancient maps to back its claim. — VS, GMA News

DFA: China boats blocking PHL vessels from Panatag Shoal  | GMA News Online | The Go-To Site for Filipinos Everywhere
 
DFA: China boats blocking PHL vessels from Panatag Shoal
BY MICHAELA DEL CALLAR July 18, 2012 9:31pm

China has blocked Philippine ships and fishing vessels from the lagoon of the disputed Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal in West Philippine Sea by setting up barriers to its entry point, a top Department of Foreign Affairs official said Wednesday.

In its boldest display of assertion to date over the area, China had placed barriers at the entrance of the lagoon of Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal, DFA Undersecretary Erlinda Basilio said.

China has reneged on its commitment to remove the barriers and also to withdraw its vessels inside the shoal, which Philippines officials say is well within Manila’s territory.
Hahahahhaha

Spanking time again for the Pinoys :lol: We are turning Scarborough Shoal into a military base

Better check that reef where our frigate "run into ground" for a few days -- we left some surprises there too ;)
 
image.jpg
[/QUOTE]

Spratlys, Paracels not on 1904 Chinese map

A Han-Chinese map of China published in 1904 reveals that China stretched as far south as Hainan Island, and that Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) Islands did not belong to China.

Shanghai Publishing House printed the map whose Vietnamese name is “Hoàng triều trực tỉnh địa dư toàn đồ” (Map of all Chinese provinces).

Spratlys, Paracels not on 1904 Chinese map - Breaking news, sociey news from Vietnam on TuoiTreNews
 
a Yuan dynasty map.

Jay-Yuan-dynasty-map-20120.jpg
[/QUOTE]


Is China wrong?
July 24, 2012

A Filipino maritime law expert has dug up a 1916 Philippine Supreme Court decision which shows Manila – not China – has had actual legal and maritime jurisdiction over Scarborough Shoal for at least a century.
In contrast, China imposed its legal jurisdiction over Scarborough Shoal only this week by creating a law-making body to enact laws over Sansha City, which now includes Scarborough Shoal or Huangyan Island. China started imposing its maritime jurisdiction over Huangyan this year when it asserted the rights of its fishermen to fish in and around Huangyan.
Dr. Jay Batongbacal, a University of the Philippines law professor, told me that the lawsuit decided by the Philippines’ top court in 1916 – led by Filipino Chief Justice Cayetano Arellano – “is clear evidence that we were exercising jurisdiction over the shoal and incidents on it during the American colonial period” in the Philippines.”
“This case is proof we are the ones responsible when it comes to shipwrecks on Scarborough,” he said.


And the fact that a lawsuit involving a foreign vessel was brought before and decided by a Philippine court led by a Philippine judge shows that foreigners recognized that the Philippines had legal jurisdiction over incidents on Scarborough Shoal for nearly a century.
Isn’t this argument for claiming Philippine jurisdiction far stronger than making Scarborough Shoal a reference point for a survey map of the South China Sea drawn in 1279 that probably looks like the map below? Prof. Batongbacal said this is a copy of a Yuan dynasty map.

raissa robles | Is China wrong?
 
Yes China is wrong !
A big family with many kids , what should China do ? build a taller house, buy new house, or rob neighbour house... China does all
That is wrong
 
China eyes airstrip near Pag-asa Island

By Jaime Laude (The Philippine Star)

Updated July 24, 2012 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - China is reportedly planning to build its first airstrip adjacent to the Pag-asa Island, a Philippine-held territory in the hotly contested Spratlys Island.

The construction of the airstrip at the Subi Reef has yet to start but Beijing is reportedly eyeing the back of a four-story building as location for the new airstrip.

The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei have interlocking territorial claims over the region while China, Vietnam and Taiwan are claiming the entire hotly-contested region as an integral part of their respective maritime domain.(so the disputes are not between China and Vietnam or between China and the Philippines;it is also between Vietnam and the Philippines,and among the lot。So let's have fun!!!:toast_sign:)

Aside from a two four-story buildings, two troop quarters, China has also installed a big radar dome and a lighthouse within the six kilometers long and 3.7 kilometers wide reef.

At the northern tip of the reef is a lighthouse that can be seen from Pag-asa during good weather.

The Philippine’s aerial territorial patrol also spotted a Chinese landing ship armed with three heavy weapons moored in Subi Reef.

“As we have gathered, China is planning to replicate in Subi Reef what the Malaysians have done in their occupied Layang-Layang Reef,” Kalayaan Mayor Eugenio Bito-onon said.

Layang-Layang is currently being marketed by the Malaysian government as one of its finest dive resorts in the region. From a reef, Malaysian developed the area into an island resort with an airport, a hotel and a naval detachment.

Subi Reef is only 12 nautical miles from the Philippine-occupied Pag-asa Island, seat of the Kalayaan Island municipality in the Spratly region, which are within the 64,976 square miles territorial jurisdiction of Kalayaan Island municipality under the province of Palawan.

China deploys military garrison

Beijing will establish a military garrison on a group of disputed islands in the South China Sea, its defense ministry said yesterday.

The move will likely spark further tensions with its neighbors.

The troops will operate from Sansha in the Paracel Islands, one of two archipelagos in the West Philippine Sea that are claimed by both China and Vietnam. – With Pia Lee-Brago

China eyes airstrip near Pag-asa Island - The Philippine Star » News » Headlines
 
I figured this post would be pretty handy in the comming years, It pays to keep referring back to it from time to time for educational value:

CardSharp said:
One thing that is taboo to mention in the western press is the fact that Vietnam's claim over the South China sea is as large as the PRC's claim.

Compare and contrast the actual stated claims by the various nations and the BBC/Economist magazines drawing of the claims.

Maritime claims
South_China_Sea_claims.jpg


BBC drawing
_48951920_south_china-sea_1_466.gif


Another lie by omission. While China's claim is contrasted with the UNCLOS 200 mile border, there is no sign of what countries actually are claiming. You just imagine how many opinions were formed on this map alone where China's claims are made to look ridiculous through manipulated comparisons.

This also shows that the ASEAN alliance is more of paper. They have interfering claims amongst themselves. But they will be willing to milk the cow for whatever its worth.
 
@ no-name

Rightly said, buddy, I have read over hundreds of articles concerning SCS disputes and have yet read one that mentions Vietnam has the same area in disputes. Propaganda by omission indeed! It's not Vietnam they are for, it's China they are against.
 
This is another map to keep in mind that shows the actual control of islands in this region. China has as many islands as Malaysia, one less than the Philippines, and a lot less than Vietnam.

2em1lrn.jpg


If I have free time, and if there are any future troll threads on SCS again, you can bet I'll post those pictures again.
 
^^^Ok so the map is a bit off and Malaysia controls 5 instead of 7 islands.
The general point is still valid though.
 
Vietnam occupied and controlled peacefully Islands many hundreds years from old time. There was no troubles in the past with others. Islands belong to Vietnam.
 

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