China plans to build an environmental monitoring station on a South China Sea shoal at the heart of a territorial dispute with the Philippines, potentially raising new concerns over Beijing’s actions to assert its claims in the strategically crucial waterbody.
The top official in Sansha City that administers China’s island claims was quoted by the official Hainan Daily newspaper as saying such stations were being built on six islands and reefs, including Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) off the northwestern Philippines.
Sansha Communist Party Secretary Xiao Jie (蕭杰) told the paper that preparatory work on the stations was among the government’s priorities for this year, but gave no other details.
Beijing seized tiny, uninhabited Scarborough in 2012 after a prolonged standoff with Philippine vessels.
Taiwan also includes the island in its South China Sea claims.
The other stations mentioned by Xiao would be situated on features in the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) — also claimed by Taiwan — which China has controlled since seizing parts away from Vietnam in 1974.
Also this week, Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong, commander in chief of the Chinese Navy, said at a meeting in Beijing with Vietnamese Rear Admiral Pham Hoai Nam that relations were improving.
China and Vietnam have had long-running territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Tensions spiked in 2014 after China parked an oil rig near Vietnam’s central coast, sparking mass protests in Vietnam.
The two navies and their countries should “together play a positive role in maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Shen was quoted as saying by the Chinese Ministry of Defense.
South China Sea tensions have eased somewhat since Beijing last year disputed a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that found a case brought by the Philippines invalidated China’s sweeping territorial claims in the region and determining that China had violated the rights of Filipinos to fish at Scarborough Shoal.
China has since allowed fishermen to return to the shoal following Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s calls for closer ties between the countries, but it does not recognize the tribunal’s ruling as valid and insists it has historical claims to almost the entire South China Sea, through which an estimated US$5 trillion in global trade passes each year.
China’s creation of seven artificial features in the disputed Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) — which are also claimed by Taipei — complete with airstrips and military installations, has drawn criticism from the US and others, and focused attention on Beijing’s long-term plans for Scarborough Shoal, which is part of the Macclesfield Bank (Zhongsha Islands, 中沙群島).
US diplomats have said privately that reclamation work on the shoal would be seen as crossing a red line, because of its proximity to the main Philippine islands.
During his confirmation hearing to become US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson compared China’s island-building and deployment of military assets to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, and suggesting that China’s access to the island should not be allowed.
The topic is likely to be high on the agenda when Tillerson visits Beijing for talks with top officials today and tomorrow.
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