A recent voyage in the South China Sea revealed the challenge as a flotilla of wooden fishing boats drew an armada of Chinese warships and coast guard vessels.
EN ROUTE TO SCARBOROUGH SHOAL — As several wooden fishing boats embarked from the Philippines one recent morning, more than 40 Chinese navy, coast guard and other vessels steamed toward them from the opposite direction, staging one of the biggest demonstrations of force in the contested South China Sea in over a decade.
The fishing boats were less than halfway to their destination — a ring of reefs and rocks known as Scarborough Shoal — when a Chinese coast guard ship appeared on the horizon. Those aboard the fishing boats, including Washington Post journalists, watched as the Chinese ship cut across the reflection of the setting sun. A second Chinese vessel arrived. Then a third. Before nightfall, the Philippine convoy was encircled.
The Philippines has been waging its most vigorous campaign yet to push back against China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. After Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president two years ago, he launched a campaign backed by the United States and other allies to resist China’s efforts at projecting military and political dominance over this strategic waterway, which is also claimed in part by six other governments.
But over the past year, the Philippine efforthas also demonstrated the limits of its power. In China, the Philippines faces one of the world’s largest maritime forces, which has routinely rammed, swarmed and pounded Philippine vessels with water cannons. Manila’s drive to “establish a new status quo” in the South China Sea has been largely dismissed by Beijing, which has doubled down on its claims over the waterway, said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Philippines claims dozens of disputed islands and maritime features such as reefs that fall within what it calls the West Philippine Sea, recently building military facilities on the contested Pag-Asa Island and deploying warships to another atoll called Sabina Shoal. Speaking at an international security conference in Singapore late last month, Marcos warned, “The lines we draw on our waters are derived not from imagination but from international law. I do not intend to yield. Filipinos do not yield.”
