In this file photo, Philippine navy personnel and congressmen land at a rock that is part of Scarborough Shoal bearing the Philippine flag that was earlier planted by Filipino fishermen.
In this file photo, Philippine navy personnel and congressmen land at a rock that is part of Scarborough Shoal bearing the Philippine flag that was earlier planted by Filipino fishermen.
Jess Yuson/AFP/Getty Images
An international tribunal in The Hague delivered a stinging rebuke to China last week, ruling that China’s claims to nearly the entire South China Sea were invalid.
The decision also questioned the legality of China’s claim of — and construction on — several reefs also claimed by the Philippines, which brought the case. China says it won’t abide by the ruling. And some in the Philippines worry China will go ahead with building activity on Scarborough Shoal, a section of rocks and reef which it seized in 2012. The shoal sits just 110 nautical miles from the main Philippines island of Luzon.
“Every reef they’ve seized they’ve made into an island,” says Antonio Carpio, a senior associate justice of the Philippines Supreme Court. “What makes Scarborough Shoal exceptional? Nothing.”
Carpio is a vocal defender of the Philippines’ territorial claims in its dispute with China. He says a Chinese presence on Scarborough Shoal would threaten not only the Philippines, but also U.S. forces using Philippine bases under a new, enhanced defense cooperation agreement.
“If you have an airfield there, maybe it will take just 15 minutes for the fighter jets there to reach Manila,” he says. “And the U.S. forces using Clark [Air Base] and Subic [naval base] are all within range.”
That fact is not lost on the United States. The U.S. has consistently said it has no dog in the fight over conflicting claims in the South China Sea. But in recent months the U.S. has conducted a series of high-profile freedom of navigation operations in the disputed waters, near the artificial islands China has created there.
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/17/486240079/in-south-china-sea-dispute-filipinos-say-u-s-credibility-is-on-the-line