Is China changing tactics in West PH Sea?

In the past six months, China’s behavior in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) has been different. No ramming or tailing of our Coast Guard ships, no dangerous maneuvers in the sky, no blocking of our fishermen’s boats in Scarborough Shoal.

The only incursion they did was to surreptitiously install a floating platform in Scarborough Shoal, with six Chinese personnel aboard, which was apparently used for marine scientific research. They left after three weeks amid the Philippine government’s protest.

Contrast this silence in the sea to the strong actions on the diplomatic—or undiplomatic—front, including in the information space. Last month, China sanctioned Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro for making “irresponsible remarks on China,” barring him and his family from traveling to the mainland, Macau and Hong Kong, and “disallowing organizations and individuals in China to engage in any transaction, cooperation or other activities with him and his spouse and child.” 

Teodoro is the first Cabinet member and the highest government official to be sanctioned by Beijing. Earlier this year, it was the Kalayaan town councilors—16 of them—who received the sanction after they declared two of Beijing’s envoys to the Philippines persona non grata. 

Last year, the sanction fell on Francis Tolentino for “his egregious conduct on China-related issues,” a day after his term ended in the Senate. 

On fire on Facebook

On social media, the Chinese embassy’s account is on fire with posts that repeatedly insist that our legal victory against China in 2016 is based on falsehoods, that it means nothing because their nine-dash-line claim is supreme. It’s an old issue, but the attacks on Facebook have escalated because the country is commemorating the 10^th anniversary of this historic ruling by an international arbitration court this month. 

The usually cautious Department of Foreign Affairs responded forcefully: “The award is final and binding… It is not and will never be illegal, null and void.” 

When it comes to individuals on its social media hit list, the Chinese embassy’s favorite is Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela. He has not let a day pass without debunking their claims or calling them out. As spokesperson of the Philippine Coast Guard on WPS, he has been unrelenting.

When China said the Philippines was hyping the presence of the floating platform in Scarborough Shoal, with some openly suspecting that it would lead to the militarization of the feature, Tarriela harked back to the recent past. He uploaded a video of Wang Yi in Manila in 1995, where the foreign minister claimed that the shelter China built on Mischief Reef, which was within our Exclusive Economic Zone, was for civilian purposes only, and would remain so even in the future.

“…look at that same reef today: a massive illegal reclamation that is now one of China’s largest military bases in the entire South China Sea,” Tarriela wrote. “The Chinese government has always been good at lying—especially when it comes to denying its true intentions in the West Philippine Sea.” 

From reclaiming to installing moveable platform?

Soon after the floating platform left Scarborough Shoal, China’s meteorological administration announced that it has built the tallest environmental observation tower in the South China Sea, off the coast of Guangdong province. The 100-meter tower collects real-time data on temperatures, wind speeds, and air pressure to “further strengthen the monitoring and protection network in the South China Sea, providing important support for marine meteorological observation…” 

On a smaller scale, the moveable platform in Scarborough Shoal appears to have a similar function as the environmental observation tower off the Guangdong coast. The Global Times said it “serves as a floating in-situ sampling and experimental platform designed to deepen understanding of the ecosystem of Huangyan Dao [their name for Scarborough Shoal] and improve scientific forecasting…”  

What’s interesting is that the 100-meter tower is moveable.The South China Morning Post reported that it will be towed to a position near the southern tip of Guangdong and the island province of Hainan, China’s southernmost province designated to administer its territorial claims in the South China Sea. These are the usual paths of typhoons. 

Could Beijing be shifting tactics, from potentially reclaiming Scarborough Shoal and transforming it into an artificial island—a red line for the Philippines—to setting up a moveable meteorological station there?

China has other large-scale environmental facilities in the South China Sea such as the South China Sea Mooring Array, designed to monitor changing currents and other marine processes. 

Military sources and West Philippine Sea experts suspect that scientific research is a pretext because China’s intent is to militarize the shoal.  The floating platform could have a dual-use capability. Apart from gathering data that can be used to enhance maritime domain awareness, the platform can expand surveillance and improve the accuracy of weather forecasting to guide China’s operations in the area.

Temporary lull

While we welcome the silence, it is most likely that the reprieve is temporary. Tarriela said in a talk at the think tank Atlantic Council that China’s “restraint may be deliberate. They are behaving carefully because Manila is hosting the ASEAN Summit, and they know it could become the venue where the Philippines rallies regional support—especially if a serious maritime incident occurs that our neighbors can relate to…”

I asked Rear Admiral Roy Trinidad, the Navy spokesperson for the WPS, about this lull. He told me that it “should not give us a false sense of security…Any illegal presence will be continually monitored, challenged and pushed back.”

Let me know what you think. You can email me at [email protected].

Till next newsletter!

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