The Philippines sent one of its largest coastguard ships on Thursday (October 1) to confront a Chinese research vessel operating in its waters close to Taiwan, drawing a charge of “harassment” from Beijing. The confrontation came days after China condemned the transfer of a retired Taiwanese coastguard cutter to the Philippines. Taken together, the two rows show how fast the contest for the seas around Taiwan is spreading beyond the South China Sea.
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said that it sent the 97-metre BRP Teresa Magbanua and an aircraft to challenge the Jia Hai Ke 7. The ship has been loitering about 37 nautical miles northwest of Itbayat, an island in Batanes, the country’s northernmost province. The Batanes group lies between the main Philippine island of Luzon and Taiwan. The South China Morning Post reported that the Philippine ship closed to within 100 yards (91 metres) at 7.55 a.m and launched an inflatable boat to disrupt what coastguard spokesman Jay Tarriela called “illegal marine scientific research”.
A privately owned ship, a state escort
The standoff escalated when China Coast Guard vessel CCG-2503 arrived and issued repeated radio challenges. The Philippine ship then shadowed it at about 1,000 yards. Tarriela said that the Chinese coastguard’s involvement “raises serious questions about who Jia Hai Ke 7 is really working for”, since the survey ship is privately owned. The PCG said the foreign ministry had confirmed that Manila gave no permission for research in the area. The Maritime Zones Act requires foreign entities to obtain authorisation first.
The PCG first flagged the ship on Monday, saying it appeared to be spoofing its Automatic Identification System (AIS) position and had ignored radio challenges. MarineTraffic data, according to South China Morning Post, showed the vessel left Xiamen on September 19 and reached the Itbayat area on September 22.
The PCG claims that the waters concerned, around Batanes and the Luzon Strait, carry routes used by undersea communications cables. It has raised the possibility of seabed surveys that could yield information on those cables. It has not publicly established that this is what the ship was doing.
Beijing’s response
The Chinese Embassy in Manila denounced the “harassment”, saying the ship was carrying out “normal operations in waters under China’s jurdiction”. The state-run Global Times described the mission as lawful geological surveying. It accused Manila of militarising civilian research. China’s coastguard marked National Day by patrolling Scarborough, Second Thomas and Sabina shoals in the South China Sea.
Why the area matters
Beijing has stepped up pressure since Tokyo and Manila announced formal talks to delimit their overlapping exclusive economic zones and continental shelves in waters off eastern Taiwan.
The Taiwanese cutter
That backdrop explains the anger over a separate move. Taiwan’s retired coastguard cutter Kinmen (CG-123), a 61-metre, 500-tonne vessel, was handed to the Philippine Coast Guard on September 21. The transfer was brokered by a non-governmental body, the We Protect Our Seas (WPS) Foundation, rather than made government to government. Taipei and Manila have no formal diplomatic ties, and Manila switched recognition to Beijing in 1975.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office condemned the deal as “despicable”. Spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian accused Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party of “helping an evildoer do evil” and of ignoring Japanese and Philippine infringements of Taiwanese interests.
Taiwan’s coastguard, however, cited earlier donations to the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu, and said the agreement bars use against Taiwanese fishing boats. Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling, as reported by NWS, said that the donation would improve maritime safety and search-and-rescue capacity.
Michael Bosack of the Parley Policy Institute said that earlier donations were mainly about capacity-building, while this one could affect contestation with China. He said it was unclear whether Manila would use it that way.
The two rows landed as tensions across the region were already high. Chinese warships and cutters blocked a Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea, last week. China also said that its forces rehearsed enforcing a claim to Scarborough Shoal on Sunday with drones and boarding drills.
