Chinese Coast Guard vessels’ actions in the West Philippine Sea are getting bolder and more irritating, as they sailed close to Zambales, Pangasinan, and up to the La Union coasts in the country’s western seaboard.
Although the Chinese maritime law enforcement ships did not stray into the Philippines’ territorial waters, they have encroached into the country’s exclusive economic zone and beyond China’s maritime zones.
The international community does not recognize China’s sovereignty claim over Bajo de Masinloc.
It is illegitimate. Thus, it has no legal basis under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
The Philippines’ sovereign rights over Bajo de Masinloc were reinforced by the landmark ruling in The Hague in July 2016.
The arbitral court declared the rocky outcrop, about 120 nautical miles west of Zambales, a traditional fishing ground not only for the Philippines but for the rest of the littoral states around the South China Sea.
It also decided that the Philippines has jurisdiction over Bajo de Masinloc, but China has prevented local fishermen from accessing the fishing ground.
It has denied and deprived Filipinos of their livelihood, allowing Chinese fishers to exploit and extract marine resources in Bajo de Masinloc.
China illegally seized control of Bajo de Masinloc in June 2012 after a three-month standoff between the Philippine Coast Guard and the Chinese Coast Guard.
The United States brokered a deal for both Coast Guards to disengage from the shoal, but China did not leave the area and seize control, sending Navy vessels to patrol the waters around Bajo de Masinloc.
However, China has not built an artificial island or transformed it to a garrison, like the other seven man-made islands in the South China Sea.
The Philippines warned China against building an island on Bajo de Masinloc, declaring it as a “red line.”
The United States has also opposed any move to build an artificial island because it could disrupt trade routes in the South China Sea.
When the US still had a large naval base in Subic, the uninhabited Bajo de Masinloc was an impact area for the large naval guns of the US Navy, part of its training area.
The presence of the Chinese Navy and Coast Guard in Bajo de Masinloc two decades after the US Navy abandoned the area has heightened tensions.
Recently, China submitted to the United Nations a formal sovereignty claim on the tadpole-shaped rocky outcrop.
As a result, China has increased maritime patrols around the shoal and even expanded to waters near the Philippines’ western coastlines in Zambales, Pangasinan, and La Union.
But it did not end there. Chinese warships have started crisscrossing the Philippines’ internal waters in the Sulu Sea, invoking innocent passage when sailing from South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean and vice versa.
Chinese warships were also steaming near Mindoro.
In the eastern seaboard, Chinese survey ships were also seen in the Pacific Ocean, from the Philippine Rise down to Surigao in the Mariana Trench.
These Chinese actions completely disregarded the Philippines’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over waters and uninhabited shoals in the West Philippine Sea.
The Philippines has strengthened its maritime law enforcement capabilities and coastal defenses to stop China’s brazen and coercive activities in the country’s maritime zones.
China does not respect the Philippines because it knows Manila lacks maritime assets to prevent its vessels from encroaching on the country’s exclusive economic zones.
The Philippines has less than 20 ocean-going Coast Guard vessels and a similar number of Navy ships to patrol and enforce its maritime zones.
It also lacks coastal defense missiles to push away Chinese vessels patrolling just 50 nautical miles off the western seaboard.
The Department of National Defense has launched a Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense strategy but it lacks funds to boost the country’s anti-access and area denial (A2AD) capabilities and increase the number of platforms.
The Philippines does not plan to match China’s naval and law enforcement forces, the world’s largest.
However, the Philippines has to develop a modest and respectable credible defense capability by investing in surface assets, communications, surveillance, and coastal and air missile defenses.
The Philippines has to catch up with its Southeast Asian neighbors. It was too dependent on the US security umbrella for the most part of the second half of the 20th century that it forgot to develop its navy and air force.
The Philippines is now paying the price of decades of neglect in building a deterrence capability. It should not, once again, rely on US defense capabilities.
Washington has deployed a mid-range capability and several long-range High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and a squadron of fighters in EDCA sites.
But these are just temporary. The Philippines has to invest in deterrence capabilities not only to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity but more importantly its maritime resources which are wantonly stolen by neighbors.
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