July 13, 2024:
For a decade now, the Philippines has depended on neighboring nations like Japan and Australia, in addition to the United States, for assistance in building a naval force large enough to deal with increasing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. China claims ownership of the entire South China Sea and has been sending more warships and coast guard vessels to impose control. China is increasing its pressure on the Philippines to remove small detachments of sailors and marines stationed on nine islets and reefs in the Spratly Islands. In particular, the Chinese want the detachment stationed on a World War II era landing ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, removed. The Filipino navy deliberately grounded the LST on Second Thomas Reef in 1999 to provide a residence for an observation team. Chinese patrol ships have recently attempted to physically block Filipino efforts to resupply the marines on the LST.
The Philippines consists of over 7,000 islands, most of them tiny. These include the Spratly Islands, which are an important part of the South China Sea areas that China considers its territorial waters. The South China Sea is a vast area that occupies 3.5 million square kilometers of the Western Pacific Ocean. Whoever controls the South China Sea can interfere with the commercial shipping traffic that passes through these waters. That traffic consists of about twenty percent of world commercial shipping traffic. China is more dependent on access to this area and considers the Philippines’ South China Sea claims as a threat to the Chinese economy. The Philippines has a mutual defense treaty with the United States which the Americans are now actively honoring to deal with the Chinese threat.
The Philippines has military detachments on nine of the disputed islands or reefs. These are part of an effort to oppose the illegal Chinese claims. In response China has put garrisons on eight islands, some of them created by dredging up sand at a reef and creating an artificial island. These eight islands, in contrast to those occupied by Filipinos, are covered with new construction, including radars, missiles (anti-air and anti-ship) as well as some cannons. There are airstrips and hangars.
The Philippines warned China that it would resist any attempts to use force against the grounded LST on Second Thomas Reef. Initially China responded by building more buildings on nearby Mischief Reef, which is only 126 kilometers from the Philippines’ Palawan Island. Second Thomas Reef and nearby Reed Bank are 148 kilometers west of the Philippines Palawan Island and well within the Philippines’s EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone). Although the EEZ is recognized by international law, and a treaty that China signed and uses to defend waters off its own coast, China says that does not apply here because all the islets in the South China Sea belong to China and there is no room for negotiation on that point.
Most countries in the region note that this was how Japan behaved before World War II. Official U.S. policy is to try and get everyone to calm down and be less provocative. Meanwhile American P-3C maritime patrol aircraft regularly fly over the Spratly Islands and photograph Chinese installations and naval activities. This data is shared with the Philippines and perhaps others. China is the biggest offender in the Spratly Island disputes and shows no sign of slowing, or backing, down.
Currently Filipino and Chinese warships are engaged in non-lethal combat. The ships are not using their weapons but instead using physical blockades and the physical presence of Chinese warships to block movements by the Filipino resupply ships and warships. The Chinese also use high pressure water cannons to injure Filipino sailors and damage their ships. Japanese involvement is a key factor because Japan has donated patrol boats to the Philippines and is building five new ones that the Philippines will receive beginning in 2027. Australia and the United States have also contributed patrol boats and larger warships or coast guard vessels which the Philippines have integrated into their naval and coast guard forces.
China has a much larger navy than the Philippines but does not want to trigger an active intervention by the United States navy. China does not want to give anyone an excuse to open fire on Chinese warships and trigger a naval war that would do enormous damage to the Chinese economy.
China is also annoyed at Japan for becoming a major supplier of navy and coast guard ships to the Philippines. The combined naval forces of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the Americans Pacific Fleet are sufficient to block any Chinese naval aggression. China does not like being boxed in like this, but their aggression against the Philippines demonstrated that the Chinese naval threat is real and the Chinese are not afraid to use it as they now are against the Philippines. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and many other nations in the region consider themselves potential victims of Chinese naval aggression.