Philippines Urges China to Remove ‘Movable Platform’ at Disputed South China Sea Shoal

The Philippines said yesterday that it is urging ​China to remove a floating structure placed at the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, a day after lodging an official protest with Beijing.

In a press conference held by the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea yesterday, Philippine Navy spokesperson Roy Trinidad said that the navy was “doing what we can to perform our ​mandate, and that includes preventing Bajo de Masinloc from being developed into another man-made island.” Bajo de Masinloc is one of the names that Manila uses for the disputed feature.

The briefing came a day after the country lodged a diplomatic protest with China over the presence of what it described as a “movable platform” near the opening of the lagoon inside Scarborough Shoal. The NTF-WPS said in a statement on Tuesday that aerial monitoring by several government agencies had confirmed the presence of a floating platform measuring about six meters by six meters and appearing to have an antenna.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs has already undertaken appropriate diplomatic action with the government of the People’s Republic of China in connection with the illegal presence of this floating structure,” the NTF-WPS said. “The protection of Philippine sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction remains a paramount consideration.”

The NTF-WPS said that it was continuing to work with relevant government agencies “to monitor developments and further assess the nature, purpose, and implications of the installation and related activities within the shoal.”

Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela told yesterday’s briefing that the greatest likelihood is that its purpose is to conduct “illegal scientific research.” The platform was first spotted in satellite images taken on May 25, Tarriela said. Philippine authorities observed six Chinese nationals on the platform on May 30.

Officials yesterday shared photos of ⁠the structure, which according to Reuters, resembled “a square platform with several people on board and an antenna positioned at ​its center.” The structure “appeared to have been built from wooden planks forming a central deck, surrounded by cylindrical flotation devices secured around its perimeter,” the news agency added.

Scarborough Shoal, a triangular reef surrounded by rich fishing grounds about 200 kilometers off the coast of the Philippines’ Luzon island, has been a persistent flashpoint in the maritime dispute between Manila and Beijing. The shoal has been under Chinese control since 2012, when the two nations engaged in a tense 10-week stand-off that concluded with China occupying the feature, despite an agreement for mutual withdrawal from the shoal.

Since then, China Coast Guard vessels have surrounded the shoal and made repeated attempts to restrict access to the shoal for Filipino fishermen from nearby Luzon. Last year, it also announced the creation of a national nature reserve at the shoal, which Philippine officials said could lead to the “eventual occupation” of the shoal.

The construction of a structure on Scarborough Shoal would mark a significant escalation in China’s tug-of-war with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal.

Indeed, the news about the new platform has prompted comparisons to the situation at Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands. China first occupied the reef in 1994, and quickly built a series of small structures on stilts, supposedly as shelters for fishermen. Despite protests from the Philippines, it continued to augment these structures over the course of the next decade before beginning large-scale land reclamation in 2014.

Today, Mischief Reef is one of the seven artificial islands that China has built in the South China Sea, equipped with a runway, radar systems, anti-aircraft weapons, and surface-to-air missiles.