Monday’s Confrontation At Second Thomas Shoal Could Be a Precursor of What’s to Come

Another confrontation between Chinese and Philippine ships at Second Thomas Shoal on Monday resulted in a collision, damage and injured Philippine sailors. The Chinese ambassador was summoned in Manila to receive a protest from the Philippine government. Today the United States again warned that it was obligated to defend the Philippines under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty. The US embassy in Manila released a statement blaming maneuvers by Chinese ships for the collision. The release also added that the Chinese actions “violated international law by intentionally interfering with the Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation.”

So here we are in the aftermath of another SCS incident between China and the Philippines. These occur with alarming regularity now which desensitizes world attention to the inherent dangers now present in the disputed sea. This is visible in the way Manila, and Washington have been going through the usual motions since yesterday. Only there is a creeping change to the power play in the SCS on the part of Beijing. In the latest meeting at Second Thomas Shoal, two Philippine rubber boats were seized by the Chinese coast guard when they attempted to shuttle supplies to the grounded former-US warship now serving as a Philippine outpost.  Monday’s incident comes on the heels of China issuing new maritime rules that permit its coastguard to detain foreigners for trespassing in the disputed South China Sea. The rules are a move by China designed to bring about causal regional acceptance of its broad maritime claims there despite the contradictory claims of other SCS nations.

Monday served as a warning, unheeded or otherwise. Chinese actions in the South China Sea will grow increasingly aggressive as the summer moves on. The Philippines, and by proxy the United States, face the prospect of finding themselves faced with either meeting the bold acts and pushing tensions perilously high, or backing down and tacitly accepting the new red line that China is forging in the SCS.