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China to develop Scarborough into military base

CHINA is “very likely” to turn Scarborough Shoal into an artificial island with military facilities, particularly as bases for its missile and anti-missile weapons, diplomatic and local intelligence sources claimed.

If China does that, Scarborough Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc) will be the closest Chinese de facto facility to the Philippines, being just 241 kilometers from Subic Bay. If China declares an exclusive economic zone around it- as many countries, such as the US and Japan, have done around their small islands — this will cover nearly half of what the Philippines claims is its West Philippine Sea or its EEZ emanating from Luzon.

The Aquino III administration lost Scarborough Shoal in 2012 in a stand-off with China, with the US fooling its officials into abandoning it, partly because the Americans didn’t want an international crisis that could even lead to conflict with the Asian superpower at a time when US President Obama was running for a second. A suit the government filed against China, disguised as an arbitration, failed to get the arbitral panel to issue a decision that the shoal belonged to the Philippines.*

China’s plan to fortify Scarborough Shoal has been mainly provoked by the apparent US and Philippine decision to make permanent the installation of the US Typhon missile system at the aprons of the Laoag International Airport. While the system is designed to launch and target with its state-of-the-art radar equipment the mid-range SM-6 missiles, it can also do so with Tomahawk missiles, which have a 1,000 range that could reach China.

Screen shot from a YouTube video titled ‘Crux.’

The US military installed the system in April, purportedly merely as part of combat exercises with our troops and to test if the system could be transported to the country by a US transport plane.

But even that early, the US Army Pacific characterized it at the time as a “landmark deployment,” marking “a significant milestone for the new capability while enhancing interoperability, readiness and defense capabilities in coordination” with the Philippines.

However, there has been an obvious lobby by the Philippine security top brass not just to retain the current system but to install more such systems in the military sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Diplomatic sources claimed that President Marcos’ statement the other day that he wanted the US to invest more in “EDCA sites” was his messaging to the Americans that he’d be willing to host more of the Typhon missile system. Several analysts have concluded that it was from the start the US plan to keep the Typhon in the Philippines.

Typhon

National security adviser Eduardo Año was quoted as saying that there “are no plans to pull out the Typhon systems.” Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said he wants the Typhon to stay “forever” in the country.

Astoundingly, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. portrayed the Typhon installation as the country’s equivalent of the missile systems of advanced countries.

UNDENIABLE Image sent to author by source who requested anonymity. This image appeared in The Bangkok Post and a few other Asian newspapers.

Teodoro, however, said the other day: “What we may purchase for the Americas may not necessarily be the Typhon, but most definitely systems with the same capability.”

Told that the Chinese foreign ministry had expressed concern about the plan to keep the system in place, Año angrily said: “Nobody can dictate to us what to do.”

China has criticized the Philippines’ potential plan to purchase the US Mid-Range Capability Missile System, labeling it provocative and irresponsible.

Sources said that China has become extremely worried about the missiles’ presence in the country since it is so close to its de facto bases in the Spratlys. Russian President Putin even indirectly referred to it as a source of geopolitical tension in the Asia-Pacific. Defense Secretary Teodoro asserted the country’s right to acquire the missile system, which would give the Philippines the capability to hit targets in mainland China, including staging areas for a possible invasion of Taiwan.

Tensions

Lin Jian, China’s foreign ministry spokesman, warned that the Typhon system installed in the Philippines could fuel regional tensions and incite geopolitical confrontation. Lin urged the Philippines to reconsider its decision, emphasizing the region’s need for “peace and prosperity.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov last week also said that Moscow is considering deploying its short- to medium-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific. While not specifying where in the region, Russia may provide the Chinese with their missiles, installed at Scarborough, mimicking the US missiles given to Ukraine, which were used to attack China. Speaking to Russian state media, Ryabkov described the option as a potential response to reports that the US may deploy its own systems in the region.

While also in response to the Marcos government’s enactment in early November of a Maritime Zones Law — which de facto declared that the shoal is within the Philippine EEZ — one indication that the Chinese are making plans to turn Scarborough into an island fortress, as it has done in seven of the reefs in retaliation to the arbitration suit, is China’s formal declaration that the shoal is part of its territory.

It did this by issuing, two days before the enactment of the maritime law, the so-called baselines (lines linking the outermost points of an island or archipelago), which define its territory. It is also from these baselines that the 12-nautical mile territorial sea and the much bigger 200-nautical mile EEZ are measured. This is the international practice under Unclos for a country’s definition of its territory. Quite strangely, the maritime zones law did not declare such baselines for Scarborough, which scholars have pointed out is a surrendering of its sovereign claim over the shoal.

With China officially declaring that the shoal is part of its sovereign territory, it can, therefore, do what it wants with it. This was exactly its response to Philippine and US protests when it transformed from 2012 to 2012 — as a reaction to the suit the Aquino government filed against — its reefs into artificial islands that are now practically military bases complete with ports, airstrips, communication and radar antennas, and or course barracks.

The capacity of this government to hit its head with a stone it planned to throw at an enemy is infinite.

*I have reported in detail how the US hoodwinked Aquino III in more than a dozen columns. This is also narrated, with citations, in my book “Debacle: The Aquino Regime’s Scarborough Fiasco,” available on my website, amazon.com, and Fully Booked.


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China to develop Scarborough into military base
Source: Breaking News PH

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