China on Saturday deployed its coast guard in waters within 40 miles of the coast of the Philippines westernmost province, Palawan, in what one analyst said amounted to a "show of force."
Newsweek has reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Philippine coast guard with written requests for comment.
Why It Matters
The Philippines remains locked in a bitter territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea. Though this was previously focused mostly on a handful of reefs, China's coast guard has for over a month patrolled just dozens of miles from Zambalese Province off populous Luzon island, where the capital, Manila, is located.
Beijing's ongoing patrols are viewed by Manila as an unlawful assertion of jurisdiction far from Chinese waters. China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, alleging historical rights, despite a 2016 international arbitral court's decision that dismissed these claims.
What To Know
Shiptracking data shared Sunday by Ray Powell, director of the Stanford University-affiliated maritime analyst group SeaLight, shows the ships of the Chinese coast guard left the Scarborough Shoal—a contested reef China seized from its neighbor after a 2012 standoff—and sailed south to within 35 nautical miles (40 miles) of Palawan, an archipelagic province of 1 million.
The Chinese vessels were well within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone (EEZ), an area extending 200 nautical miles from its coastline where Manila has exclusive rights to explore and exploit natural resources under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Powell called the Chinese deployment a "show of force" and said, quoting from a 2023 SeaLight analysis, "Intrusive patrols are a crucial part of China's gray-zone tactics playbook, 'meant to establish a continuous presence and gradually normalize Chinese jurisdiction over areas granted to its neighbors under international law'"
Gray-zone tactics refer to actions used to gain a strategic advantage without triggering a full military response.
While foreign ships are allowed to pass through EEZs under freedom of navigation rules, the Philippines has protested China's maritime forces for unlawfully asserting jurisdiction as well as Beijing's construction of artificial islands within its EEZ.
"The Philippine coast guard remains unwavering in its commitment to asserting the nation's sovereignty, sovereign rights, and maritime jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea in accordance with UNCLOS, the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and the 2016 Arbitral Award," wrote Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela on X (formerly Twitter) in a Sunday post about the ongoing separate Chinese patrols off Zambales Province.
What People Are Saying
Hu Bo, director of Peking University's Center for Maritime Strategy Studies and the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, wrote in a January article: "Since 2023, [the Philippines] has been comprehensively challenging China in various hotspots, including Second Thomas Shoal, Scarborough Shoal, Sandy Cay and Sabina Shoal, refusing to acknowledge any understanding or disputes with China.
"China's strong countermeasures (...) have forced the Philippine side to gradually recognize the real situation leading to a reduction in overall provocations."
Collin Koh, a senior fellow at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, wrote on X: "PRC [the People's Republic of China] has become a major external security threat to the Philippines. The only difference is that Manila under the successive administrations then had opted an internal security focus.
What's Next?
China and the Philippines are entrenched in their positions on the South China Sea, and the dispute is likely to continue.
Manila is pressing forward with its $35-billion military modernization program, including navy vessels from South Korea, and is mulling the purchase of a pair of submarines.
Adding to the tensions is a U.S. Army Mid-Range Capability missile system, deployed on Philippine soil since April. China has called the presence of the weaponry a "highly dangerous move."
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About the writer
Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more