Recently, the Philippines has carried out a series of provocative acts in the waters near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, not only forcibly breaking into China's blocking net, but also dismantling the obstacles set up by the Chinese Coast Guard in an attempt to break into the lagoon of Scarborough Shoal and provoke the second Scarborough Shoal crisis. In the face of the unreasonable actions of the Philippines, what measures should China take to safeguard its sovereignty and interests?
It is reported that the Philippines sent a fishery administration ship on September 22 to the waters near Scarborough Shoal with Philippine coast guard personnel and ** reporters. They pretended to "comfort the fishermen," but in fact they provided diesel fuel and groceries to more than 50 Filipino fishing boats, and encouraged them to forcibly enter the island's lagoon. However, their plan was sabotaged by a 300-meter barrage net set up by the Chinese side, and the Philippine ships were unable to get close to Scarborough Shoal.
The Philippines is very unhappy with this, and has publicly accused the Chinese coast guard of setting up a barrage net at Scarborough Shoal, which hinders the "normal fishing" of Philippine fishing boats. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Tariera also threatened to cooperate with relevant Philippine authorities to deal with the "China challenge". Philippine national security adviser Arnold even announced that all "appropriate measures" will be taken to remove China's obstacles near Scarborough Shoal. Arnold is a senior Philippine national security officer and a military background, and the "appropriate measures" he refers to obviously do not refer to diplomatic representations, but to armed actions. Sure enough, on September 25, the Philippines** announced that it had sent divers to dismantle the Chinese coast guard's barrage net at Scarborough Shoal. This is a blatant violation of China's sovereignty by the Philippines, which has escalated the tension between China and the Philippines and turned it into a confrontational situation.
The Philippines dismantled China's barricade net with the obvious aim of sending a number of ships to forcibly intrude into the waters near China's Scarborough Shoal. If the Chinese side does not stop it in time, the Philippine ship may directly break into the Huangyan Island lagoon and then deliberately run aground. In this way, the Philippines could use fishing vessel activity and resupply activities at sea to create another crisis at Scarborough Shoal and compete with China for control of the reef.
The main reason why the Philippines staged such a farce at Scarborough Shoal was that their landing ship "Sierra Madre" on Second Thomas Shoal was already in danger of disintegration. The ship is a "stronghold" of the Philippines illegally beached at Ren'ai Jiao, and the Philippines has been using it to confront China. However, the ship is old and has been repeatedly prevented from transporting building materials by the Chinese coast guard. The Philippines realized that it no longer had an advantage on Ren'ai Jiao, so it shifted its target and chose other islands and reefs to "stir up trouble". In addition to Scarborough Shoal, the Philippines has also carried out provocations at Sembin Reef and Horseshoe Crab Reef, accusing China of "destroying undersea coral reefs" and creating incidents in the South China Sea under the pretext of "protecting the marine environment".
Personally, I believe that Marcos Marcos of the Philippines is an abnormal national leader who insists on provoking China and ignores China-Philippines relations and the stability of the situation in the South China Sea. He also acted as the "best man" of the United States, creating incidents in the South China Sea, arousing the resentment of other ASEAN countries. At the ASEAN summit, Indonesia's **Jokowi, on behalf of ASEAN, made it clear that "it is not appropriate to be a big country". However, Marcos went against the collective will of ASEAN and colluded with the United States to challenge China's sovereignty and interests. Personally, I believe that China can no longer tolerate it, and should carry out sand blowing and reclamation at Scarborough Shoal to strengthen its military deployment on this island and reef.
Looking back at the history of confrontations between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, China has always made too much substantive progress in the South China Sea out of consideration for the overall situation, and breakthroughs have always been made after the Philippines provoked them. Now, the Philippines has no scruples about stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, and with the support of the United States, it also wants to win over Vietnam as the next "** person". After Biden's visit to Vietnam, Vietnam issued a statement on September 26 that China was building an automatic identification base station for ships in the Spratly Islands, falsely claiming that the move "violated Vietnam's sovereignty." Personally, I believe that if the dispute between Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal is not resolved as soon as possible, there will be more and more similar situations. The United States will not stop trying to destabilize the situation in the South China Sea, and China needs to act decisively!