‘New normal’: Chinese ships swarm Scarborough aid mission

MANILA, Philippines — Chinese ships swarmed the country’s regular aid mission for fisherfolk off Scarborough (Panatag) Shoal on Friday in what a West Philippine Sea monitor deemed to be a “new normal.”

Commodore Jay Tarriela, Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, confirmed that a “Kadiwa” mission is ongoing in Panatag Shoal, also locally known as Bajo de Masinloc.

Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) 44-meter vessel BRP Cape San Agustin and six other BFAR’s 30-meter vessels arrived as close as 30 nautical miles (NM) east of the Panatag Shoal on Thursday afternoon, but the ships have “since repositioned overnight” to 70 NM southeast of the shoal, according to SeaLight director Ray Powell.

Six China Coast Guard and 10 maritime militia vessels were also in the area to match this fleet and “aggressively enforce its exclusion zone around the shoal,” Powell noted.

“I think this is the new normal at both Scarborough Shoal and also off Palawan,” Powell, program head of Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, told Inquirer in a message on X (formerly Twitter).

“China has essentially determined that it will shadow Kadiwa missions to assert its jurisdiction within its [10] dash line,” he added.

Since its effective takeover in 2012, China has enforced what experts call an “exclusion zone enforcement” around Panatag, preventing fisherfolk access.

Through its “10-dash line,” Beijing claims sovereignty in almost the entire South China Sea, but Manila brought the matter to an international court, which effectively ruled in favor of the Philippines’ sovereign rights in 2016.

The arbitral tribunal also declared the Panatag Shoal a traditional fishing ground for the Philippines, China, and Vietnam.

In its refusal to recognize this ruling, China continued its aggressive actions there, the most notable of which occurred on Aug. 11, which led to the collision of its coast guard vessel and navy warship.

Almost a month after the collision, Beijing declared Panatag Shoal as an environmental nature reserve, a unilateral move rejected by Manila. /apl