Chinese Bullying of the Philippines and Other South Sea Provocations Should Be Met With Trade Sanctions

Forty Chinese warships blocked the Philippine Coast Guard from resupplying its flagship stationed in the West Philippine Sea on Aug. 26. This latest incident is part of a pattern that has seen the Chinese regime become increasingly aggressive in asserting its claims over international waters as its maritime forces have grown in size and capability.

More specifically, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has claimed parts of the South China Sea, commonly referred to as the West Philippine Sea by the Philippines and other Western powers such as the United States. This region, internationally recognized as part of the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), extends 200 miles from the country’s shores.

The current incident, of many incidents, revolves around who has control over the strategically important Escoda Shoal, located 75 nautical miles (nm) from the Philippines and 630 nm from China.

As such, the shoal is well within the Philippines’s EEZ and is a long way from any internationally recognized zone of control for China. However, as has been the case with any claims that run counter to the CCP’s expansive and vague “nine-dash line” claims to 90 percent of the South Sea, Beijing has ignored Manila’s territorial claims. In doing so, Beijing has ignored the July 12, 2016, international ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague as constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that clearly recognizes the Philippines as having sovereign rights over the Escoda Shoal.

Indeed, China has shown contempt for all four major findings of the 2016 Hague Court as delineated here:

1. China’s claims to historic rights and resources within the nine-dash line have no legal basis.
2. None of China’s claimed land features in the Spratly Islands are islands (and as such, none of China’s claimed features can generate more than 12 nm of surrounding maritime territory).
3. China violated the Philippines’s sovereign rights by conducting the following activities in its exclusive economic zone: interfering with Philippine oil exploration activities, prohibiting Filipino fishermen from operating, failing to stop Chinese fishermen from operating, and building artificial islands.
4. China violated its marine environmental protection obligations under UNCLOS by causing ‘‘severe harm to the coral reef environment’’ with its land reclamation activities and by not preventing the harvesting of endangered species by Chinese fishermen.

That Beijing continues to ignore the provisions of the Hague Court ruling undoubtedly stems from the fact that the communist regime’s increasingly bellicose actions in the South China Seas have been met with words, and occasionally, some might even suggest token freedom of passage exercises. Indeed, despite lots of irate rhetoric from Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, etc., China has yet to suffer any real consequences, including significant trade sanctions.

Consequently, it is no surprise, absent any real concrete actions by the international community to rein in China, the Chinese military has continued to ramp up its aggression against Philippine vessels operating in the West Philippine Sea. The latest major incident involves Chinese ships ramming and blockading the resupply mission of the Philippine Coast Guard’s 2,600-ton Teresa Magbanua vessel, which was harassed by a whole slew of Chinese naval vessels, including three warships, six cutters, and 31 maritime militia vessels.

While the Philippines is outmatched by China, it has not backed down. Philippine Navy Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad recently told the Filipino outlet Daily Tribute: “So far, our Coast Guard will stay there, while our Navy and Air Force have increased their patrols by sea and by air.” Trinidad went on to say that the increased patrols and operations would support the activities of the BRP Teresa Magbanua deployed by the Philippine Coast Guard.

Meanwhile, there is talk of the United States getting involved by using its Navy to provide escorts. This may sound good, but the U.S. Navy does not have enough seaworthy ships to undertake such an operation. At best, one or two ships could be deployed that would be vastly outgunned by the Chinese naval force in the area, which includes 40 or so ships of varying displacement plus two 30,000-ton class Amphibious assault ships with lots of helicopters.

Instead, the United States and other countries affected by the Chinese regime’s aggressive South China Sea provocations and actions should immediately start deploying trade and other types of sanctions. This is far more likely to get results than sending token ships from the already depleted and overtaxed U.S.