The coast guard had “implemented maritime control” at Sandy Cay in the Spratly Islands, with images showing the national flag unfurled on the uninhabited sandbar.
The Philippines hurriedly dispatched a team to take similar photos to show it remained unoccupied.
The landing on the atoll, and the publicity given to it, drove home one of Beijing’s core messages to the region this year – the prospect of abandonment by an unreliable US administration.
China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, made this clear in March. At his high-profile press conference during the annual Two Sessions in Beijing, he warned that “infringement and provocation will backfire, and those acting as others’ chess pieces are bound to be discarded”.
In case anyone had missed the point, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a standalone statement highlighting Mr Wang’s comments. Official comments have repeated the line ever since.
The Sandy Cay incident was typical of China’s efforts to place US commitment in the Indo-Pacific under the microscope. The sandbar is within plain sight of the Philippines’ main military outpost in the hotly disputed archipelago.
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