The Chinese Communist Party is indifferent to any objections to is continuous misconduct. But objecting to it and also “pushing back” in some visible if not visibly effective way is better than seething in silence. In response to its latest incursions near the Philippines, the Philippine government has submitted a diplomatic protest and made a public statement (“[The Philippines] lodges protest [against] China for illegal Coast Guard presence in EEZ,” Inquirer.net, January 13, 2025).
In a statement on Monday, the National Maritime Council (NMC) aired the Philippines’ objection to the continued illegal presence and activities of Chinese maritime forces and militia within the country’s territorial sea and [exclusive economic zone].
According to NMC, these actions clearly violate Republic Act No. 12064, the Philippine Maritime Zones Act, and international laws, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 2016 arbitral ruling….
“The PCG continuously challenged CCG 5901 and CCG 3304 and told them to leave the area immediately,” it added.
But NMC said the Chinese government, in a provocative move, also deployed a People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) helicopter, which hovered above a PCG vessel lawfully carrying out its duties in a peaceful and professional manner.
Chinese vessels are even starting to crowd Philippine shorelines (“Philippines alarmed by Chinese ships moving closer to shore,” Inquirer.net, January 14, 2024).
The Philippines said Tuesday it was alarmed by Chinese coast guard patrols which are growing closer to the country’s shore….
The Philippines said China’s deployment this month of a “monster” coast guard vessel demonstrated Beijing’s “increasing aggression” in the disputed waterway.
“It’s getting closer to the Philippine coastline…and that is alarming,” National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Malaya told journalists Tuesday.
Chinese ships have been deployed closer to the Philippine coast this year, Malaya said, with the latest movements an “intimidation tactic” intended to discourage Filipino fishing.
Two Philippine Coast Guard ships are shadowing China’s monster ship.
Part of what seems to be going on is that the Chinese Communist Party is now stressing its cartographic claim to most of the South China Sea by tracing the physical counterpart of the imaginary nine-dash or ten-dash line of its hegemonic map (“China Begins Patrolling of its ‘Nine-Dash Line’ Claim,” The Maritime Executive, January 12, 2025).
For the first time, China’s coast guard has begun patrolling a section of the country’s “nine-dash line”—the loosely-defined boundary of Beijing’s unilateral claim to the South China Sea, including international waters and other states’ exclusive economic zones.
Since the beginning of the new year, a group of large China Coast Guard cutters have been rotating through patrol duty in an area just off Zambales, Luzon. At closest approach, the patrols have come within about 55 nautical miles of Philippine shores.
One of the deployed vessels is CCG 5901, the largest armed law enforcement vessel in the world at 12,000 tonnes displacement. Over VHF, its crew has informed the Philippine Coast Guard that the CCG is enforcing Chinese law in Chinese waters, even when 100 nautical miles inside the Philippine exclusive economic zone.
The Philippine Coast Guard has dispatched the offshore patrol vessel BRP Teresa Magbanua to monitor the Chinese presence and push back on these sovereignty claims.
China hasn’t announced that it is now patrolling the imaginary line that pseudo-establishes its pseudo-claims to the waters of other countries in the area. But a Philippine Coast Guard vessel has observed the pattern. Chinese Coast Guard vessels “have been patrolling a north-south racetrack off Luzon’s coast, and the track lines align well with a segment of the ‘nine-dash line’….”
In September 2023, India and other countries reacted angrily to China’s release of a new, ten-dash map that incorporated new claims. But more recent reporting tends to refer only to a nine-dash line. It hardly matters. Either version of the map shows China’s asserted boundary straying very close to the Philippines and Malaysia.
Suppose China succeeds in clearing “its” sea of all non-Chinese vessels and parking a lot of belligerent Chinese ships within forty or fifty miles of the shores other countries. What would the next step be?
