Golez: No less than the US Chief of Naval Operations expressed alarm about a detected Chinese activity in the Scarborough Shoal area: “He said the U.S. military had seen Chinese activity around Scarborough Shoal in the northern part of the Spratly archipelago, about 125 miles (200 km) west of the Philippine base of Subic Bay. ‘I think we see some surface ship activity and those sorts of things, survey type of activity, going on. That's an area of concern ... a next possible area of reclamation,’ he said.”
A China controlled militarized Scarborough Shoal will be a serious threat to the security of the Philippines and its allies, a dagger aimed at the Philippine heartland where vital economic and military installations are located: Subic, Clark, Metro Manila and Calabarzon. It must be treated as a potential clear and present danger.
This is indeed a most serious development if true. China no doubt has the capability to conduct reclamation activities in the Scarborough Shoal area and convert the circular rock formation into a huge land formation capable of hosting airstrips, harbors and support buildings, as well as several arrays of missiles. The lagoon inside is around 150 square kilometers, the size of Quezon City.
Fully developed like what China did in much smaller Fiery Cross Reef, a militarized Scarborough Shoal converted into a naval and air base can accommodate the entire PLA Navy inside the lagoon and several squadrons of fighter and other kinds of planes.
A China controlled militarized Scarborough Shoal will be a serious threat to the security of the Philippines and its allies, a dagger aimed at the Philippine heartland where vital economic and military installations are located: Subic, Clark, Metro Manila and Calabarzon.
The Philippines and our allies should not allow this to happen. This must be declared a red line.
DigitalGlobe | Getty Images
Construction and dredging underway at Mischief Reef, a large reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea on March 16, 2015.
The United States has seen Chinese activity around a reef that China seized from the Philippines nearly four years ago that could be a precursor to more land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea, the U.S. Navy chief said on Thursday.
The head of U.S. naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, expressed concern that an international court ruling expected in coming weeks on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims could be a trigger for Beijing to declare an exclusion zone in the busy trade route.
Richardson told Reuters the United States was weighing responses to such a move.
He said the U.S. military had seen Chinese activity around Scarborough Shoal in the northern part of the Spratly archipelago, about 125 miles (200 km) west of the Philippine base of Subic Bay.
"I think we see some surface ship activity and those sorts of things, surve type of activity, going on. That's an area of concern ... a next possible area of reclamation," he said.
Richardson said it was unclear if the activity near the reef, which China seized in 2012, was related to the pending arbitration decision.
He said China's pursuit of South China Sea territory, which has included massive land reclamation to create artificial islands elsewhere in the Spratlys, threatened to reverse decades of open access and introduce new "rules" that required countries to obtain permission before transiting those waters.
He said that was a worry given that 30 percent of the world's trade passes through the region.
Asked whether China could respond to the ruling by the court of arbitration in The Hague by declaring an air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, as it did farther north in the East China Sea in 2013, Richardson said: "It's definitely a concern."
"We will just have to see what happens," he said. "We think about contingencies and responses."
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