A 300 meter long barrier adds fuel to the fire between China and the Philippines. This Tuesday, Beijing advised Manila to avoid “provocations” in the South China Sea. The warning comes after the removal by the Philippine coast guard of a floating barrier, installed according to Manila by Beijing near a disputed reef. The device was discovered last week at the entrance to the Scarborough Reef, which China took control of in 2012 at the expense of the Philippines.
It blocked access to the atoll-shaped reef, with shallow waters rich in fishing resources. The Philippine Coast Guard announced Monday its dismantling “in accordance with the instruction of the Presidency.” Asked about this, a spokesperson for Chinese diplomacy, Wang Wenbin, castigated “the so-called press release” from the Philippines on Tuesday.
Penknife in diplomacy
“China firmly defends its sovereignty as well as its rights and interests on Huangyan Island [nom chinois du récif de Scarborough] “, said the spokesperson. “We advise the Philippines not to make provocations or create unrest,” he warned the press.
Scarborough Reef is 240 kilometers west of the Philippines’ main island, Luzon, and nearly 900 kilometers from the Chinese island of Hainan, south of mainland China. “The barrier represented a danger to navigation, a clear violation of international law,” said the Philippine Coast Guard, publishing a video on Monday. It shows a man wearing a mask, snorkel and fins cutting a rope attached to white buoys with a knife.
China ignores international law
Earlier, Philippine national security adviser Eduardo Ano said the Southeast Asian archipelago would take “all appropriate measures” to secure the removal of the barrier. To the dismay of several neighboring countries, China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, which is an important crossroads of commercial maritime routes.
Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China helped develop, countries have the sovereign right to exploit natural resources within a radius of about 200 miles (370 km). ) of their ribs. In 2013, the Philippines initiated international arbitration proceedings against China. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled in favor of Manila in 2016, ruling that there was “no legal basis for China to claim historical rights” over most of this sea and its resources. Beijing refused to take part in the proceedings and ignored the ruling.