Countries around the globe condemned China’s hypocritical plans for a nature preserve on Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, where Beijing has wreaked environmental havoc with its artificial island-building as it seeks control over maritime territory to which it has no legal claim.
The Philippines faces constant coercion from China near the shoal and elsewhere inside its internationally recognized exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Beijing, which illegally claims most of the South China Sea, deploys coast guard, navy and maritime militia vessels to harass Philippine fishing, humanitarian missions, and routine military and law enforcement patrols. The aggression has continued even after an international tribunal’s 2016 ruling that invalidated China’s arbitrary claims to the South China Sea and found that Beijing violated Philippine rights to Scarborough Shoal.
Manila quickly denounced China’s declaration of an “island nature reserve” on the shoal. The move “is less about protecting the environment and more about justifying [China’s] control over a maritime feature that is part of the territory of the Philippines,” stated National Security Advisor Eduardo Año. “It is a clear pretext toward eventual occupation.”
The United States backed its longtime treaty ally, saying China’s actions continue to undermine regional stability. “Beijing claiming Scarborough [Shoal] as a nature preserve is yet another coercive attempt to advance sweeping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea at the expense of its neighbors, including by preventing Filipino fishermen from accessing these traditional fishing grounds,” stated U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Australia and Japan joined Indo-Pacific partners in calling for China to comply with the tribunal ruling, while the United Kingdom opposed “any unilateral activity that changes the facts on the ground and raises tensions in the South China Sea.”
Experts called China’s actions an example of lawfare — purposely misinterpreting the law to change the status quo — and pointed to Beijing’s history of causing environmental damage in the South China Sea.
“This isn’t environmental protection — it’s environmental lawfare,” Ray Powell, director of the SeaLight Project at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, told the U.S. Naval Institute News. He cited “highly destructive methods” used by Chinese fishing crews and reports that Beijing has destroyed more than 1,800 hectares of coral reef in the South China Sea with its artificial island-building. The international tribunal also found that China harmed coral reefs and inflicted “irreparable damage to the marine environment.”
“Now [China] seeks to consolidate its sovereignty claim while deflecting attention from the ecological damage it caused,” Powell said. “It’s like an arsonist promoting himself to fire marshal over the ruins of a building he stole and burned.”
Beijing has long used encroachment in an attempt to exert control over its neighbors’ territory. Analysts say such gray-zone tactics — sometimes called salami slicing — are small enough to avoid a military response but accumulate to China’s benefit. Examples include:
- China’s aggressive interference with Philippine resupply missions to its military outpost on Second Thomas Shoal, which Beijing wants Manila to abandon.
- Beijing’s artificial island-building in the contested Paracel and Spratly chains. By militarizing the features, China hopes to establish de facto authority over economically important stretches of sea.
- Regular China Coast Guard intrusions near the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, an effort to challenge Tokyo’s control over the resource-rich territory.
- Fish farms and marine platforms that Beijing built without permission where its EEZ overlaps with the Republic of Korea’s in the Yellow Sea.
- Military harassment of self-governed Taiwan, which China claims as its territory and threatens to annex by force.
- Infrastructure projects Beijing has built along its de facto border with India and Chinese patrols into disputed territory, all aimed at asserting authority and upending the status quo.
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