Chinese ships that had been spotted near a submerged reef in the disputed South China Sea have left the area, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said, downplaying reports China had taken control of an atoll as part of efforts to assert claims to more than 80 percent of one of the world’s busiest waterways.
“There are no more sightings of Chinese vessels in the area as of today [Wednesday],” the DFA said in a statement. The department “reiterates its call for China to exercise self-restraint from the conduct of activities that could complicate or escalate disputes in the South China Sea and affect peace and stability in the region.” A Philippine official on Wednesday said he recently spotted five suspected Chinese coast guard and navy ships at a disputed atoll in the South China Sea and fears Beijing will take control of another area frequented by Filipino, Vietnamese and Malaysian fishermen.
Mayor Eugenio Bito-onon Jr., who heads a Philippine-claimed region in the disputed Spratly Islands, said he saw the Chinese ships at the Jackson Atoll for two straight days last week while flying in a plane over the area.
Bito-onon said Chinese government vessels have not been stationed at the atoll, which the Philippines calls Quirino, in the years he has been passing by the uninhabited, ring-shaped reef.
Jackson Atoll lies several kilometers (miles) from the Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef, which China occupied in 1995 and has turned into an island containing what appears to be a runway. It lies midway between the western Philippine province of Palawan and Filipino-occupied Thitu Island in the Spratlys.
The DFA in Manila earlier said it was trying to verify the reported Chinese presence, and that the Chinese ships recently prevented Filipino fishermen from approaching the area. Chinese Embassy officials were not immediately available for comment.
A Philippine security official said the Air Force was preparing to fly a surveillance plane to verify the Chinese presence. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the military does not discuss such covert missions publicly.
“I’m alarmed because we frequently pass by that atoll on our way to Pag-asa,” Bito-onon told The Associated Press by telephone, using the Philippine name for Thitu Island, where he frequently travels to visit a Filipino fishing community guarded by troops. “What will happen now if we sail close by with all those Chinese ships?”
Filipino, Vietnamese and Malaysian fishing boats have gone to the vast fishing lagoon Jackson for years, Bito-onon said, adding that Filipino fishermen were looking forward to the start of the octopus-catching season that starts next month.
Philippine planes landing and taking off at Thitu have also been warned frequently to stay away by Chinese forces based at the nearby Subi Reef, one of seven reefs in the disputed Spratlys that China has transformed into islands in the last two years using dredged sand. The plane that he was on last week that flew to Thitu was shooed away again by the Chinese at Subi, Bito-onon said.
“When you take off or land, you’ll hear their warning: ‘You are flying within our security zone, please leave immediately to avoid miscalculation,’” Bito-onon said.
He has said those Chinese warnings are an act of intimidation and illustrate the threat to freedom of overflight in the region. In January Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines personnel also received radio warnings identified as being from the Chinese navy when they flew a Cessna plane to Thitu to undertake an engineering survey for the installation of civil aviation safety equipment on the island.
The US and governments with rival claims with China in the disputed region, including Vietnam and the Philippines, have expressed alarm over China’s island construction, saying it raises tensions and threatens regional stability and could violate freedom of navigation and overflight.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei Darussalam have conflicting territorial claims in the Spratlys.
Chinese navy and coast guard vessels—identified by their gray or white colored hulls—reportedly chased Filipino fishermen from the area around Jackson atoll last week. The ships have been positioned around the atoll, which lies between Chinese-occupied Mischief Reef and Philippine-occupied Lawak island, for more than a month, the paper said.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has reclaimed more than 3,000 acres of land on seven features in the Spratlys in the past two years, adding airstrips, lighthouses and port facilities to better project influence over the waterway. The Philippines has contested the claims based on a 1947 Chinese map, known as the nine-dash line, in an international tribunal, which is expected to make a ruling later this year. China has refused to participate in the arbitration.
“This is exactly the kind of thing we should expect to see more and more of as the facilities that China’s built on these artificial islands come on line,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. “As it gets more supportive infrastructure, it is going to be much easier for China to blanket the Spratlys.”
The Jackson atoll is about 140 nautical miles from Palawan Island, a province that lies to the southwest of the Philippine archipelago, and about 15 nautical miles from the nearest rock that might generate a 12-nautical-mile territorial zone under international law, according to Poling. Jackson atoll is fully submerged at all times, he said. “There is no rock close enough to justify a claim to this submerged reef.”
China may be building a high-frequency radar installation at Cuarteron Reef, the southernmost of the features China claims in the Spratly Islands, Poling wrote last week. China sparked new questions about its intentions in the South China Sea after surface-to-air missiles were detected last month on Woody Island, part of the Paracel Islands northwest of the Spratlys.
(AP, Bloomberg News)