China’s clumsy sea aggression marks escalation with Philippines

MANILA – China’s pincer strategy in the South China Sea appears to have shifted toward more aggressive naval enforcement of its claim to Philippine territory, Philippine armed forces chief General Romeo Brawner said Tuesday (August 12).

That move backfired on August 11 after a China People’s Liberation Army Navy ship accidentally rammed into a China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel while harassing a Filipino coast guard boat near the contested Scarborough Shoal, which is situated within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

While China has been harassing Philippine vessels in the sea for years – even in waters that are clearly within Manila’s territorial EEZ – it has never directly involved the PLA Navy in the conflict.

This week’s harassment indicates that Beijing has raised the level of its aggression, short of signaling an open conflict with the Philippines, the United States’ long-time strategic ally in the region.

“We can see here a change in China’s tactic,” Brawner told reporters in Manila. “They are now deploying their PLA Navy. This symbolizes China’s aggressiveness.”

“They claim that we are causing trouble in the West Philippine Sea, but we clearly saw yesterday the opposite, because they continue to claim Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal as their own territory.”

Lying just 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from the Philippines’ main island of Luzon, the shoal has long been a traditional fishing ground for generations of local fishermen.

Beijing, however, claims historical rights to the shoal because it is inside its so-called nine-dash line map, which experts argue is illegal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The shoal has been under de facto Chinese control since 2012. Manila took Beijing to an international court of arbitration in 2013, and three years later, it ruled in favor of the Philippines, a victory that was cheered by the international community led by the United States and other Western powers.

China ignored the ruling, which lacked an enforcement mechanism, and accused Washington of seeking to cause discord in the region. The Philippines is a strategic military ally of Washington, with a mutual defense agreement dating back to 1951 that binds both nations to come to each other’s aid in times of foreign aggression.

Recently, both countries refined the coverage of the treaty to cover acts of war to include hostilities in the South China Sea, even as Filipino officials have stressed that the time has not yet come for Manila to invoke the treaty.

On Tuesday, Brawner was emphatic. The country, he said, cannot agree to China’s position because the Philippines “is backed up by law.” “The 2016 arbitral ruling states that China’s nine-dash line is baseless,” Brawner said. “So they cannot claim Bajo de Masinloc.”

He said it was clear on Monday that the PLA Navy had intended to ram the tiny Philippine Coast Guard boat. “That is the assessment of our Philippine Coast Guard. It was a good thing that our coast guard was fast and the two Chinese vessels hit each other.”

Brawner said China would now be hard-pressed to offer any counter narrative on this week’s incident. “What happed there was their fault, because it was caused by their aggressive maneuvers,” he said. “We were just there to protect our Filipino fishermen that are there in Scarborough Shoal. That is our only goal, because that is our traditional fishing ground.”

BRP Suluan, the Philippine vessel, had outmaneuvered the Chinese Navy ship and a Chinese Coast vessel, with bow number 3104, leading to a collision between the chasing Chinese watercraft. The Chinese Navy ship hit and caused substantial damage on the forward portion of the CCG vessel.

Suluan was in the area to distribute fuel and ice to the Filipino fishermen in the area. It was initially harassed with a water cannon, but the “seamanship skills by PCG crew members allowed the vessel to successfully evade from getting hit,” the coast guard said.

“Fortunately, the (Philippine) Coast Guard was fast and evaded the PLA Navy and Chinese Coast Guard. This lead to the collision between the two Chinese vessels,” said Brawner.

China has used its Coast Guard and maritime militia to harass PCG and even Filipino-flagged vessels in the West Philippine Sea in recent years.

Brawner said the military was meeting soon with the leadership of the PCG  to discuss future actions in dealing with situations similar to Monday’s incident.

“Of course, we’re also going to seek guidance from our President because of what has happened,” said Brawner without saying when the meeting will take place.

“We’re going to discuss future actions, future tactics to counter what China is doing to prevent us from getting close to Bajo de Masinloc,” said Brawner, referring to the Scarborough Shoal.

One of the options, Brawner said, is to send Philippine Navy ships nearer to the shoal to ensure the safety of the PCG when doing humanitarian missions in the area, noting that the Navy has been staying at a far distance from the shoal.

Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, meanwhile, said similar mishaps may occur in the future if China does not cease such illegal actions in the contested area.

“So long as they will maintain their ICAD (illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive) activities and presence, incidents like this may happen again in the future,” said Trinidad.

Asked if they expected China to be more aggressive in preventing a Philippine presence in the vicinity of the shoal following the incident Monday, Trinidad said: “We do not speculate. We do not anticipate but so long as they have their illegal presence, their coercive and aggressive actions will continue.”

Trinidad implied that the harassment against the PCG vessel was not enough for the Navy to step in. He said military units are government by rules of engagement, or “rules that governs the use of force for mission accomplishment.”

“The Chief of Staff has been very clear that in all operations in the West Philippine Sea to include Bajo De Masinloc, the use of force for mission accomplishment is not authorized without infringing on the universal right of self-defense, defense of one’s unit or defense of others,” said Trinidad.

“The guidance has been very clear in conducting our aerial missions, in conducting our patrols, maritime patrols, air surveillance flights. The use of force is not authorized except for self-defense situations,” added Trinidad.

Jason Gutierrez was head of Philippine news at BenarNews, an online news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia (RFA), a Washington-based news organization that covered many under-reported countries in the region. A veteran foreign correspondent, he has also worked with The New York Times and Agence France-Presse (AFP).