40 China ships blockading, fortifying reef near Palawan

Forty China ships are blockading Escoda Shoal very near PalawaThe intruders are fortifying the feature. But the AFP declines US military help in the tinderbox area only 70 nautical miles from land.

Three People’s Liberation Army-Navy warships and nine China Coast Guard gunboats swarm Escoda (Sabina). More than 31 China Maritime Militia steel trawlers augment them.

China has been landfilling the shoal lagoon with crushed corals since May. Such reinforcing precedes rock-laying and concreting, like in Panganiban (Mischief) Reef farther off.

A Chinese island-fortress so close to Palawan will debase Philippine territorial security. While feigning friendship, China can cut off Philippine entry to oil- and gas-rich Recto (Reed) Bank 50 nm beyond.

China can also deny access to Pag-asa, main island of Palawan’s Kalayaan Municipality, and the rest of the 200-nm exclusive economic zone.

Seventy nautical miles is 130 kilometers – the short road commute from Manila to Tarlac City, and Tarlac to Baguio. Or Manila to Caliraya, Manila to Matabungkay, Manila to Tayabas, Manila to Infanta.

Also, Santiago to Tuguegarao, Cabanatuan to Baler, San Pedro to Lucena, Naga to Sorsogon, Cebu City to Santander, Catarman to Catbalogan, Cagayan de Oro to Marawi, Butuan to Surigao City.

Chinese ships encircle the Philippine Coast Guard’s BRP Teresa Magbanua. Filipino law enforcers moored at Escoda in April to monitor China’s illicit acts and assert Philippine sovereign EEZ rights.

China began crushing the corals in September 2023. It also destroyed Rozul (Iroquois) Reef farther west of Escoda and Recto.

China’s blockaders aggress Philippine patrols. On Aug 19, three huge CCG vessels rammed two PCG craft half their size.

BRPs Cape Engaño and Bagacay were to resupply Marines in Kalayaan’s Patag and Lawak Islands. At 3:24 a.m. a CCG gunboat rammed Cape Engaño, punching a five-inch hole on its side. Twenty minutes later, two CCG gunboats rammed both sides of Bagacay.

On Aug. 25, BRP Datu Sanday approached Escoda to ration food and fuel to Filipino fishers. Seven CMM trawlers dangerously maneuvered across it. A PLA warship rammed it while two CCG vessels water-cannoned the communications gear.

“The Philippine Navy and Coast Guard vessels must stand their ground and not leave Escoda,” retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio told this column: “Let China fire at them. We can then invoke the Phl-US Mutual Defense Treaty.”

The ramming to drive away Philippine patrols is a prelude to Chinese occupation of Escoda, warned retired Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan: “China is about to repeat its 2012 grab of Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal off Zambales.”

US naval escorts of Philippine supply vessels is “an entirely reasonable option,” said Admiral Samuel Paparo. The US Indo-Pacific Command chief spoke at a defense forum in Manila Aug. 27.

But AFP head General Romeo Brawner Jr. declined help, preferring to “do it by ourselves. We are going to try all options, all avenues available.”

The US, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, Britain and the European Union have condemned China’s hostility. BBC News calls Escoda the “new flashpoint.”

China has long been eyeing Escoda. Several times in the 2000s it dropped buoys preparatory to annexation. Filipino navy men confiscated the markers.

One time a PLA Navy ship circled it but ran aground. The embarrassed Chinese skipper refused Philippine assistance. Two Chinese craft towed it away days later.

Beijing illegally claims the entire South China Sea via an imagined nine-dash line. The Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration repudiated that baseless sea boundary in 2016.

The Hague accepts only the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. China and the Philippines are signatories to the 1982 pact.

UNCLOS grants each coastal state 200-nm EEZ. But China overstretches its EEZ to encompass the West Philippine Sea, and EEZs of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

UNCLOS forbids foreign entry into a country’s EEZ except on innocent passage; no stopping or zigzagging. It also bans coral destruction. The 2016 Hague ruling castigated China for destroying Panganiban in 1995 and Panatag since 2012.

Still, in mid-June the China Communist Party ordered the CCG to “arrest and detain trespassers” – meaning Filipino fishermen and travelers – in the West Philippine Sea. The PLA, CCG and CMM report to the CCP-Central Military Commission.

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