Construction tensions in the South
China Sea By Richard Javad
Heydarian
MANILA - In a move that promises
to raise regional tensions, China recently stepped
up construction work in contested territories in
the South China Sea. In late September, Beijing
announced plans to accelerate the building of
Sansha city, a newly formed administrative unit on
Yongxing Island, also known as Woody Island, in
the disputed Paracels archipelago.
The
city will oversee Beijing's administration of the
Paracel Islands, Macclesfield Bank, Scarborough
Shoal, and other assorted reefs, sandbanks and
some 200 small uninhabited islets and their
surrounding waters in the contested Spratly
Islands. The People's Liberation Army (PLA),
meanwhile, has announced without supplying details
plans to build a military garrison at Sansha, a
move that threatens greater militarization of the South
China Sea's crucial
trade lanes.
China's US$3-million
construction plan includes seven road projects
with a total length of 5 kilometers, an
inter-island transportation network with docking
facilities, and a desalination unit with a
1,000-cubic-meter capacity to ensure fresh-water
supplies for the city's estimated 3,500 permanent
inhabitants.
Sansha city was upgraded to
prefecture level on July 24 amid a naval standoff
with the Philippines over control of the adjacent
Scarborough Shoal. China's announced building
plans have agitated the Philippines, which
currently controls Pag-asa Island, one of the
biggest in the area, as well as Vietnam, which
lays claim to the Paracels. Both countries lodged
official complaints about Sansha's upgraded status
in July.
Piqued by China's rising
assertiveness, improved fortifications and gradual
administrative consolidation over contested
features in the Spratly Islands, Manila has
responded in both diplomatic and operational
terms. In June, before Sansha's upgrade, Manila
summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to protest
formally against growing construction activities
in areas Philippine officials have consistently
argued fall within their country's exclusive
economic zone (EEZ).
The complaint came
soon after Philippine military officials spotted a
number of Chinese vessels in the area, ranging
from a salvage and research ship to cargo boats
unloading construction materials and building
posts on Iroquois Bank in the vicinity of the
Spratly Islands, or just 125 nautical miles off
the coast of the Philippines' southern island of
Palawan.
Manila has also raised its voice
against China's expressed plans to plant a "mega
oil rig" in the area, raising the possibility of
China oil depots and installations near Philippine
shores. China is also reportedly planning to build
an airstrip at Subi Reef, just next to
Philippine-controlled Pag-asa Island. The
3.7-kilometer-wide contested reef already houses
two living quarters for Chinese troops, two
four-story buildings and a large radar dome.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines have
responded with mixed messages. Late last month,
the Philippines reportedly deployed 800 marines to
Palawan, an island close to contested areas in the
South China Sea. However, Lieutenant-General
Juancho Sabban, head of the AFP's Western Command,
denied the reports on October 1, saying there was
an "apparent miscommunication" by military
officials. He said the recent deployment of fewer
than 100 personnel to Palawan was "defensive",
while other commanders said the move was part of
routine plans to improve basic maritime patrols.
"These two battalions which arrived
recently will be augmenting protection of our
islands. We are just on a defensive posture and
are ensuring the defense of our islands. It is
better to defend than retake islands once other
claimants occupy them," Sabban said, making veiled
reference to Mischief Reef, which China seized
from the Philippines by force in 1995. To bolster
coordination and command over deployed forces, the
Philippines opened a new Marine Brigade
headquarters in nearby Palawan.
At the
same time, the Philippines recently said it might
fire on Chinese surveillance drones that enter
territory it claims in the South China Sea. Yang
Yujun, an official with China's Defense Ministry,
affirmed plans to use unmanned drones to monitor
activity in disputed areas of the South China Sea,
including the Scarborough Shoal, the Spratly
Islands, and their adjacent waters. Yang asserted
China's "indisputable sovereignty" over those
areas in announcing its use of drones.
For
almost two decades, the Philippines has watched
anxiously as China has fortified its claims in the
South China Sea. In 1995, just three years after
the closure of US bases in the Philippines, China
seized control of Mischief Reef from Philippine
forces. Soon thereafter, China built structures
resembling military installations on the reef,
though Beijing claimed at the time they were
shelters for fishermen.
Two-pronged
approach Since that armed confrontation,
China had taken a more sophisticated approach to
consolidating its claims, combining the carrot of
multilateral and regional diplomacy with the stick
of increasingly aggressive bilateral showdowns
with smaller claimant states. Paramilitary vessels
and fishing boats implicitly backed by
conventional military forces, military
fortifications built up by elements of the PLA
Navy, and quasi-civilian administrative projects
have all bid to crowd out other claimant states,
especially Vietnam and the Philippines.
In
2002, China and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) signed the Declaration of the Code
of Parties in the South China Sea, which calls
broadly for peaceful and diplomatic resolution of
territorial disputes. The non-binding agreement
explicitly prohibits the construction of military
fortifications in the region, a provision China
has consistently violated, Philippine and
Vietnamese officials have argued.
The
Philippines is perhaps the only country that has
failed to make any significant improvement of its
structures in the nine islands and reefs it
directly controls in the Spratly Islands.
Malaysia, another claimant state, has built spas
and diving resorts on the Layang-Layang Reef it
controls. China and Vietnam have built
fortifications, watchtowers, lighthouses,
airstrips and even buildings powered by solar
panels in their respective areas of control.
Most Philippine structures in the area
date back to the 1960s and '70s and are poorly
maintained and withering, diminishing the
operational capacity as well as the morale of
Philippine forces stationed in the area.
Philippine officials cite their commitment to the
2002 conduct agreement as a reason for their
lagging investment in maintaining and improving
its structures in the Spratly Islands.
Commentators have pointed toward a lack of
strategic foresight as the AFP has focused more on
internal threats caused by various insurgencies
across the country.
China's construction
will also fortify its claims at the international
level. According to some legal experts, assuming
its territorial claims are eventually submitted
for international arbitration by bodies such as
the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
(ITLOS), exercising "effective and continuous
sovereignty/control over occupied features" is a
more critical factor than "historical claims". So
far, China has rejected international arbitration
on the grounds that its claims over the area are
"inherent" and "indisputable".
China's
interpretation of the key legal regime concerning
maritime disputes, namely the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), takes a
divergent interpretation of Article 121 on "regime
of islands". Southeast Asian claimants such as the
Philippines look at the majority of features in
the South China Sea as "uninhabitable" and
therefore only able to lay claim to 12 nautical
miles of territorial waters. By installing
relatively large-scale structures capable of
housing humans, China seems determined to turn
these features into habitable islands.
The
implication is significant for the Philippines and
other claimant states. Through a more liberal
interpretation of the UNCLOS' Article 121 China
can feasibly claim 200-mile EEZs from each of its
occupied islands, allowing it to lay legal claim
to oil-and-gas-rich areas as far south as
Indonesia's Natuna Islands as well as the
Philippines-claimed Reed Bank.
Strategic
analysts say China's buildup could also serve as a
foundation for fortifications that enable
large-scale future military deployments. China's
Defense Ministry announced in July that Sansha
city would be the operational center of a new
military garrison in the South China Sea, though
details of the plan have been scarce.
Operationally, such a garrison would allow China
to push its claims further into Philippine-claimed
EEZs.
The Philippines has responded to
these perceived threats by strengthening strategic
ties with the US and calling for outside
intervention, including from the UN, moves that
have likely undermined Manila's simultaneous
diplomatic efforts to constrain China's rapid
buildup in the contested territories. On October
8, the Philippines began 10 days of joint military
maneuvers with some 2,600 US troops and naval
vessels, including so-called amphibious landing
exercises.
Meanwhile, Philippine Foreign
Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario called on the
UN on October 2 to intervene in the conflict,
calling on it to fulfill its mission of
"protecting the weak from the strong". At the same
time, ASEAN members circulated a new draft of the
South China Sea code of conduct during a sideline
meeting between ASEAN ministers at the UN General
Assembly meeting this month.
Meanwhile,
anxieties over China's intentions are building
among Philippine military planners. "Every time we
take periodic pictures of all the islands in the
Spratlys, we notice some changes, we observe
changes in structures," Sabban said, referring to
recent Chinese construction at Sansha.
Richard Javad Heydarian is a
foreign affairs analyst based in Manila. He can be
reached at jrheydarian@gmail.com.
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