Ayungin Shoal is not “Ren’ai Jiao,” and it is not China’s to claim. In its 12 July 2016 Award, the Arbitral Tribunal constituted under Annex VII of UNCLOS ruled that Ayungin is a low-tide elevation lying within 200 nautical miles of Palawan — part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines. Under Article 13 and settled international law, a low-tide elevation is incapable of appropriation by any State. There is no sovereignty there for China to “safeguard!”
BRP Sierra Madre is an active commissioned vessel of the Philippine Navy stationed on our own continental shelf. Sustaining the Filipino sailors aboard her is neither provocative nor unlawful. It is the exercise of sovereign rights the Tribunal already affirmed as ours.
But if Beijing is genuinely troubled by permanent structures built on features that do not belong to it, then let us talk about Panganiban Reef/Mischief Reef.
The very same Tribunal found Panganiban Reef to be a low-tide elevation within the Philippine EEZ and continental shelf. It ruled that China’s artificial island-building there violated Articles 60 and 80 of UNCLOS, breached our sovereign rights, caused severe harm to the marine environment contrary to Articles 192 and 194, and aggravated the dispute while the case was still being heard.
So the demand runs the other way. It is China that should dismantle and vacate its illegally reclaimed artificial island at Panganiban Reef — 129 nautical miles from Palawan, and more than 600 nautical miles from Hainan.
One last thing. We were told these facilities were meant to shelter fishermen, to support search and rescue, to provide weather services and public goods.
Ten years on: a 3-kilometer runway, hangars, radar domes, and missile shelters.
So, Foreign Minister Wang Yi — where exactly is the fishermen’s shelter?
