The South China Sea (19 page)

The consequences of the cuts can be seen on all the islands controlled by the Philippines. On Ayungin (known internationally as the Second Thomas Shoal) the marines live aboard the rusting hulk of the BRP
Sierra Madre
, a tank landing ship that was deliberately run aground on the reef
in 1998. Even walking across the ship's main deck is dangerous. Years of sea salt and high winds have flayed the metal bare. In several large patches the deck is completely worn away and visitors have to literally ‘walk the plank’ to get across. The five marines and two sailors who guard the shoal have even less to amuse themselves than their counterparts on Parola. ‘Life's quite hard here because there are no trees, no ground,’ Petty Officer Third Class Benedicto de Castro told a visiting journalist in 2012. Their diet consists almost exclusively of the fish they catch. During 2013 their lives became even tougher as China Coast Guard ships laid siege to their outpost, turning away supply vessels.

Every three months or so the BRP
Laguna
, or another of the Philippine Navy's Second World War tank landing ships, sets off on the ‘Log Run’ – the logistical supply run around all nine features occupied by Filipino forces. It should be a seven-day trip but bad weather or mechanical problems frequently make it longer. None of the Philippine islands have harbours, or even jetties to receive larger ships, so supplies have to be loaded onto small boats and ferried to shore. At high tide on Rizal Reef (Commodore Reef on Western charts), the four-man garrison retreats to its stilt houses and plays cards until the water goes down again. How they envy their colleagues, just an hour's sail away, on Kota (Loaita Island) with their dry land and green trees.

One of the crew's duties on the Log Run is to inspect reefs and shoals that the Philippines claims but doesn't occupy. Increasingly, they discover evidence of foreign activity. It can start with something as apparently innocent as an orange buoy. The buoy might be just a mooring point for a fishing boat but General Sabban says that more often it is the first step in a surreptitious land grab. If the buoy isn't removed, he says, then within a few months it can evolve into a steel post. In mid-2011 his forces discovered one at Sabina Shoal that had evolved into a large commercial shipping container anchored to the reef. ‘It's China, of course,’ he says. Remembering the events of Mischief Reef in 1995, when the Philippines was caught napping, the sailors and marines have orders to remove everything they find. It's a game of cat and mouse, with the Chinese constantly testing the vigilance of the boys in blue and green.

The trip usually begins or ends on the main Philippine-held island: Thitu, or Pagasa as its inhabitants call it. Pagasa's name – ‘hope’ in
Tagalog – is appropriate, since hope is what sustains its small community. Thitu was one of the first islands to be occupied by Philippine forces and it's by far the largest at 37 hectares. It's big enough for a small settlement but not for the 1,260 metre-long runway that sticks out either side of it. The runway was built in the mid-1970s but is now only usable with the utmost care. In the words of Western Command's in-house magazine
Kanluran
, the ‘runway is about to be completely detached due to erosion’ by the sea. In early 2011 a Philippine Navy ship delivering materials to repair it ran aground on the surrounding reef. The armed forces declared they didn't have the resources or the skills to complete the job and appealed to the government to fund repairs by a civilian contractor. Pledges have been made but the waves are still eating away at the runway.

In 2001, the Philippines became the first country deliberately to settle civilians in the Spratlys but it requires a particularly tough constitution to stick out the conditions on Thitu/Pagasa. Officially, according to the 2010 census, the island has a population of 222. In reality, only around 60 live there at any one time. That's partly because the central government subsidy of $14,000 per year can only feed that many. Almost everything – except fish, salt and coconuts – comes by boat. Unlike the Vietnamese, the Filipinos haven't yet shipped in soil to make vegetable gardens. There's supposed to be a mobile phone station on the island but the signal is described as ‘intermittent’.

The mayor of the island, in fact of the whole ‘Kalayaan Island Group’, is Eugenio Bito-onon. He was one of the pioneers, moving to Thitu/Pagasa in 1997 to work as a town planner for the hoped-for town. He's still planning, still hoping. Mayor Bito-onon dreams of a safe runway and a functioning harbour, of tourists flying in for infinity pools and pristine coral reefs, of yachts in a marina, of fishing boats stopping for supplies and a thriving community catering for all their needs. But nothing can move without an injection of central government funding and the government always has other priorities. In June 2012 Bito-onon opened the island's first school building with one teacher, three nursery children and five kindergarten pupils. It was just a single room with borrowed furniture but he hopes it will persuade more families to stay. Until then, children had been travelling 500 kilometres to Palawan, the nearest large island, for their education. He's pressing for the government to build a proper school
with toilets and separate classrooms but is still waiting for the necessary $100,000 to get started.

China made diplomatic protests about the school opening, arguing it was a violation of its ‘indisputable sovereignty’ in the South China Sea. That seems to be the main reason why the Manila government's chequebook remains closed. Its approach – policy might be too strong a word – has been to avoid giving China any reason to protest against activities on the Philippine-held islands and to hope thereby to maintain the status quo. The garrisons are clearly token forces and could be overrun within minutes by a determined enemy. Even on Thitu the defences consist of little more than a pair of 40-mm anti-air guns and the marines’ personal weapons. In contrast to all the other occupied islands in the Spratlys, there are no anti-invasion obstacles in the water and almost no fortifications on land. An attempt to construct any would incur a protest from Beijing and, perhaps, repercussions. The Vietnamese just ignore such protests but the Filipinos take them more seriously.

One piece of construction that has been completed is a small statue of Tomas Cloma, the pioneer of Kalayaan. In a way, Mayor Bito-onon is Cloma's heir. He's responsible, in theory at least, for seven islands (Kota, Lawak, Likas, Pagasa, Panata, Parola and Patag) plus Rizal Reef, Ayungin Shoal, and dozens more unoccupied features and vast areas of sea in between. Thitu/Pagasa has a town hall but without a decent mobile phone signal it's hard to work from there. For most of the year, Kalayaan's local government operates from a small office in a dusty shopping development on the outskirts of Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan.

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By the time the People's Republic of China moved into the Spratly Islands in 1987–8, all the dry real estate had been occupied. Only barren reefs remained, clearly unable to sustain human life without the addition of hundreds of tons of concrete and steel and the provision of regular supply boats. Life has been particularly tough in these outposts. Although Chinese media reports always portray the occupants of the ‘sea bastions’ as ruddy-faced heroes brimming with patriotic zeal and socialist morals,
sometimes they inadvertently reveal more of the truth. A March 2005 report in the
PLA Daily
newspaper, for example, hailed the inventiveness of one group of veteran soldiers stationed on Yongshu Jiao (Fiery Cross Reef) when trying to cheer up a newly arrived soldier, Chen Hao. Chen's birthday was approaching but ‘there is neither butter nor eggs on the reef’ so they made him a cake using bean curd. Chen's reaction to this confectionary delight was not recorded. In June 1994, Chinese radio reported that soldiers in the outposts ‘once had sores in their mouths because of long periods without green vegetables’ – an early symptom of scurvy – and described men stationed in ‘lone pillboxes’ for more than a year at a time.

More recent articles, while praising new developments, also tell us something of the continuing unpleasantness of life. A June 2012 report in the
PLA Daily
championed the delivery of kitchen equipment that is ‘moisture and erosion-proof’, ‘sound-proof shields for generators’ and glasses to protect against ultra-violet radiation. This seems to imply that metal fixtures are rusting away, that soldiers are living in close proximity to loud industrial machinery and suffering from sun-blindness. Almost every official picture of the reef forts is taken on a calm clear day when the sky is bright blue and the sea clear and calm. But for most of the year it's either 30°C and unbearably humid, or monsoon winds are blowing in one direction or another. From October to January there are periodic typhoons – with 200-kilometre-an-hour winds and waves occasionally large enough to break over the occupants’ heads.

At the time of writing there are PRC-built blockhouses on eight reefs in the Spratlys: Cuarteron (Huayang Jiao), Fiery Cross (Yongshu Jiao), Gaven North (Nanxun Jiao) and Gaven South (Xinan Jiao), Johnson South (Chigua Jiao), Kennan (Dangmen Jiao), Mischief (Meiji Jiao) and Subi (Zhubi Jiao). Construction is also under way at a ninth, Eldad Reef (Anda Jiao). None were designed with aesthetics in mind: they're survival structures built to withstand waves, wind and military attack. Some have enough space for a basketball hoop or a table-tennis table and there's always the helipad for some
tai chi
but there's no chance of a game of football on any of them. Unlike the Philippine-controlled islands, which could be nature reserves, the clear purpose of the Chinese structures is to control the sea around them. They bristle with radar domes, satellite dishes and gun emplacements.

With no space to relax outside, the Chinese have turned inwards. Karaoke machines and video games have been available for some time but satellite connections now give soldiers access to the internet – officially for online learning but presumably for less high-minded purposes as well. For the past few years, all of the contending countries have been waging a logistical war – with each other and with the elements – to provide the best mobile phone coverage in the islands. Vietnam was the first to move, installing a base station in July 2006. Since then China has worked hard to catch up. Its first system in the Spratlys became operational in 2011 and in January 2013, China Telecom proudly announced that the largest outpost, Fiery Cross Reef, now has a working 3G mobile phone connection and it was busy rolling out coverage to the other garrisons. Across the archipelago soldiers and fishermen now have a choice of competing national phone companies. The Philippines is well behind the others, but at least the Filipino marines on Parola (Northeast Cay) can borrow the signal from their Vietnamese rivals on Dao Song Tu Tay (Southwest Cay) to call home.

* * * * * *

If it were ever asked to adjudicate the rightful ownership of the Spratly Islands, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) would have to unravel a very complex web of claims. Six states might try to pitch in: France – based on its discovery and occupation in 1933 and re-occupation in October 1946; the Philippines – based upon the proclamation of Vice-President Quirino in July 1946 (and possibly the activities of the United States as the colonial power during the 1930s); the (Taiwanese) Republic of China – based on its occupation in December 1946 and actions since (although since it's not a recognised member of the UN it wouldn't be able to present a case directly); the People's Republic of China – also based on the actions of the Republic of China and its claimed right to be the legitimate ‘successor state’; and Vietnam – based upon its claim to be the successor state to French Indochina and its actions since.

The first thing the court would need to decide would be the ‘critical date’ – the moment at which the crucial events have all taken place and the dispute has ‘crystallised’. The choice of date is usually critical to the
outcome. For example, if the court had been asked to rule on Itu Aba's sovereignty in 1947, it would presumably have ruled in favour of France on the grounds that Paris had clearly asserted its claim and ‘occupied’ (in the legal sense) the island well before anyone else. But if asked the question now, the judges might decide to include more recent events – in particular the apparent failure of France to maintain its claim over the past 60 years – which would probably give an advantage to the Republic of China.

The ‘critical date’ has another related meaning: it's also the point after which actions taken by the parties in a dispute have no effect in the eyes of international law. Since the dispute has ‘crystallised’ – all sides have made their positions known – building a runway or incorporating islands into new provinces or drawing them on a new map will carry no weight at all with the judges at the ICJ. In the case of the South China Sea, the ‘critical date’ is certain to be a few decades ago. This basic piece of jurisprudence doesn't seem to be understood by the various claimants for the islands who persist in making irrelevant gestures and protesting about the irrelevant gestures made by others even though they are unlikely to have any bearing on the international legal situation. They are simply another bluffing strategy in their giant poker game.

If the parties chose to ask the question, the ICJ might be asked to rule on whether a claim to Itu Aba amounts to a valid claim on just one island, on the island's immediate surroundings or on the entire Spratly archipelago. There are precedents. For example, in a ruling on the status of eastern Greenland in 1933, the ICJ decided, in effect, that it was not necessary for a state to physically occupy every part of a remote and difficult island to claim sovereignty over its entirety. If this precedent were followed, it's possible that a verdict on the sovereignty of Itu Aba would also apply to the other features of the coral atoll that it sits on – known as the Tizard Bank. They include the Vietnamese-occupied Namyit Island (Dao Nam Yet), Sand Cay (Da Son Ca) and Petley Reef (Da Nui Thi) and the Communist Chinese-occupied Gaven Reefs (Nanxun Jiao and Xinan Jiao) and Eldad Reef (Anda Jiao) which all lie within 40 kilometres of each other. However the court might also rule that these are separate islands carrying separate claims.