The Journal. - A Tiny Crew, a Wooden Boat and a Mission to Hit Back at China

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

The Philippines and China are in an ongoing dispute over competing territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea. A recent incident at Scarborough Shoal has added to tensions. WSJ’s Niharika Mandhana explains. Further Reading and Watching: -China Coast Guard Ship Collides With Philippine Boat in South China Sea  -How a Tiny Crew Struck a Blow Against China With a Wooden Boat and a Knife  -Philippines Removes Chinese Floating Barrier in South China Sea  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Off the coast of the Philippines, in the South China Sea, there's a place called the Scarborough Shoal. Scarborough Shoal is a triangular reef, and in the middle is a blue, beautiful lagoon. That's our colleague Niharika Mandana, and she says that the lagoon only has one entry point. It's uninhabited. It has no structures on it. And it's a traditional fishing ground for Filipino fishermen as well as Chinese fishermen. So it is a site for fishing? Yes, for generations,

fishermen from around that region, from the Philippines in particular, have been fishing in the area. For more than a decade, China's been blocking Philippine access to the shoal, heightening tensions between the two countries. Last month, China put up a floating barrier with white buoys at the entry of the lagoon, and the Philippines decided the lagoon. And the Philippines decided to push back. Members of the Philippine Coast Guard sailed to the shoal and snuck to the edge of the barrier.

So what they do is they go in, not in a Philippine Coast Guard vessel, but in a wooden fishing vessel that looks like the kind of vessel that Filipino fishermen in that area use. It's called a bunker. And there's a very small crew of Philippine Coast Guard personnel. They are not wearing their uniforms because they don't want to attract a lot of attention. They want to look like fishermen and they want to get to the barrier. One of the divers dives in, takes a small knife,

saws at the rope where it attaches to the anchor for the barrier, and the rope comes loose. They then pick the anchor up, put it into their little fishing boat and leave. So why would you say this incident is important? It was an act of defiance, a sort of statement that we're going to stand up for our rights and we're not going to be okay with these sorts of tactics that have built up in the South China Sea over many, many years.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Tuesday, October 24th. I'm Kate Limbaugh. It's Tuesday, October 24th. Coming up on the show, why the Philippines and China are fighting over fishing reefs in the South China Sea. Travel better with Air Canada. You can enjoy free beer, wine, and premium snacks in economy class. Now extended to flights within Canada and the U.S. Cheers to taking off this summer. More details at aircanada.com. The South China Sea is bordered by China to the north,

Vietnam to the west, and the Philippines to the east. And it's long been the site of territorial and maritime disputes. For decades, China's claimed the right to control most of the sea and its resources based on an argument of historic rights. But that contradicts international law, which states that countries have the right to resources within 200 nautical miles off their coasts. Why is this region, the South China Sea, so important for China? This region is really important because billions and trillions of dollars in trade passes through the South China Sea. It's a very important conduit between China's markets and China's raw material sources in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and China. China has been expanding its presence in the South China Sea and exerting more control.

And surrounding countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei have all protested what they see as China's encroachment. Last month, U.S. defense officials said its allies in the region were working to counter Chinese attempts to claim vast areas of the sea. So China's claims are not restricted to this part of the sea or that part of the sea, this feature or that feature, unlike some of the other claimants. China's position is it claims almost all of the South China Sea. And it wants to be able to control that area, to be able to decide who exploits the oil and gas resources in the area, how fishing and shipping functions in that area, to make it an extension of its own waters, essentially. How successful has it been in doing that? It's been, I would say, quite successful. It's changed how the South China Sea looks and how

the South China Sea functions in many ways. So now you have Chinese bases in the South China Sea. China's built artificial islands and converted them into bases, and they're able to maintain and sustain a constant presence in many different corners of the South China Sea, like Scarborough Shoal. When it comes to the fish-rich Scarborough Shoal, an international tribunal ruled that China couldn't block Filipinos from fishing there. Remember, international law allows countries to access resources within 200 nautical miles from their coast, and Scarborough Shoal is within that range of the Philippines. But starting in 2012,

China, which is 600 nautical miles away, began asserting its power over the shoal. One day, Chinese fishing vessels arrived at the shoal. The Philippines tried to arrest them. And the conflict snowballed into a weeks-long standoff. There was a lot of diplomatic efforts to dial that down, to come to a resolution. The U.S. was involved in brokering some of these negotiations to dial down tensions. And in the end, it looked like there was a deal that involved both China and the Philippines pulling their ships out of Scarborough Shoal. So the Philippines pulls its ships out of Scarborough Shoal. So the Philippines pulls its ships out of Scarborough Shoal.

China does not. Since then, the Philippines has lost all access to the shoal. And China has controlled it with a large Coast Guard presence. So if there's a sensitive site like Scarborough Shoal, what China has done in the last 10 years is to have Coast Guard ships stationed there day and night, 24-7, guarding the shoal and making sure nothing changes there. And you need to imagine that the Chinese Coast Guard vessels are large vessels compared to Coast Guard vessels belonging to the Philippines, for instance. These events have happened at various locations in the South China Sea.

And lately, China's tactics have gotten more forceful. What are the tactics? The tactics vary depending on the part of the South China Sea that we're talking about. But by and large, they involve Chinese coast guard vessels trying to intercept or block off vessels from opposing countries. So if the Philippines is trying to patrol an area, a Chinese ship will come and block them off. If the Philippines doesn't turn around at that point, the Chinese ship might use a water cannon to force them to turn around. the Chinese ship might use a water cannon to force them to turn around.

It involves an incident like the one that occurred where the Chinese Coast Guard used a military-grade laser, pointed it at a Philippines boat to then push them to leave the area that the Chinese didn't want them to be in. It involves using large swarms of fishing boats, which are maritime militia, to crowd around a feature or to occupy an area so that nobody else can come in there or that it's too risky to enter that area

because there could be an accident that could escalate. Over the past decade, these tactics by China have squeezed the Philippines away from some parts of the South China Sea. It's sort of a creeping or incremental approach, but you add up all these things over a period of time and you realize, hey, when did we lose access to that area? Coming up, what caused the Philippines to finally push back? Seth and Riley's Garage Hard Lemonade, a delicious classic with a vibrant taste of fresh lemons. The perfect balance of sweet and sour with a crisp, sesty edge.

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And don't forget InStock Promise, where you can count on great offers being in stock or get a rain check. Discover more value than ever at Loblaws, in-store and online. Conditions apply. See in-store for details. These tensions between Beijing and Manila increased after a change of leadership in the Philippines. The previous president was more pro-China. And 15 months ago, a new president was elected. Fernan Marcos Jr. is projected to win the presidential election

in the Philippines by a landslide. As president, Marcos has sought to strengthen the country's relationship with the U.S. and pushed back on China. I think it's a foreign policy decision that he's made that the Philippines is better off putting its eggs in the U.S. basket as opposed to the China basket. So he's doubled down on the Philippines' alliance with the U.S. This is a very old alliance. It's been around for decades. And President Marcos

has doubled down on the alliance and said that the Philippines is not going to give up an inch of territory, that the Philippines is going to stand up for its rights. In February, the Philippines partnered with the U.S. to unveil a major expansion of a defense agreement, giving the U.S. access to nine Philippine military bases, up from five. Also this year, Marcos' government has repeatedly called out China for its actions. Chinese Coast Guard and Chinese militia vessels have no right whatsoever to place a blockade or impede or otherwise control the movement of the Philippines Coast Guard and Philippines. So far, what we've been able to tell about his policy is to name and shame China for tactics that China has been using for the last decade

to keep pushing the boundaries with bigger boats, with more resources. So the idea is to not cede any more ground, to not give up more patrols, to try to reclaim the ability to patrol some of these areas that have been lost in the last decade. One specific way in which the Philippines has been trying to stand up to China is by positioning Philippine boats as close as possible to Scarborough Shoal. A few weeks ago, Philippine officials headed out for a routine maritime patrol. But this time, they had media on board the boat.

The idea was, with the presence of the media, the Chinese Coast Guard would be less likely to use forceful tactics. were blaring warnings, but they kept their distance enough that the Philippines boat was able to then maneuver and make it to about a thousand feet from the mouth of the shoal. That hadn't happened in a very long time. And that's when the Philippines realized that Chinese boats weren't just guarding the shoal, but they were putting up that floating barrier, the one with the white buoys. The boat took this information back to the Marcos government, and the president made a decision

to remove the barrier. The Philippine Coast Guard took action. And they decided at that point, we're going to try to go in, not attract attention, dive in, cut the rope, pick up the anchor, go back home, and let everybody know that this is what they did. And they put out a video of their diver cutting the rope. China refutes the Philippines' story. It says the Philippines didn't take down

the barrier. The Chinese Coast Guard did. It also claims that the barrier had initially gone up because a Philippine vessel had barged into the lagoon, which the Philippines denies. Did cutting the barrier, picking up the anchor, give the Philippines more access to the shoal? It does not. The barrier blocks the entrance to the shoal? It does not. The barrier blocks the entrance to the shoal, but it's not like removing the barrier allowed Filipino fishermen to suddenly be able to go into the lagoon. There is always a

Chinese Coast Guard ship guarding the mouth of the lagoon. And so cutting of the barrier was an act of defiance. It didn't actually change in terms of access what Filipino fishermen or what Filipino official boats could or could not do. Tensions continue. On Sunday, a Chinese Coast Guard ship collided with a Philippine boat. That boat was on its way to deliver supplies to an outpost on another shoal, about 100 nautical miles off the Philippine coast. No one was hurt. China's Coast Guard said it intercepted the boat only after issuing warnings, and that the collision was small. So what is the significance of all of these incidents? It's really interesting that it was very transparent. At every stage, the Philippines was recording what was happening.

So there had been a thinking earlier that these things are better sorted out bilaterally through diplomats quietly before they escalate, before public pressure builds up. Now the Philippines has taken a different approach. They think that calling out China's actions is important. Keeping a public record of those actions is important. And that's the way to build sort of pressure because this is an asymmetric sort of power where the Philippines can say, OK, we are going to at every step show the world what's happening and what we're doing to stand up for our rights. That's all for today, Tuesday, October 24th.

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