ANALYSIS:
by Dr. Jose Antonio Socrates

A history of Three Warnings

PART VII: MISCHIEF REEF:
The Philippine’s Panganiban Reef is better known internationally as Mischief Reef. To the Chinese it is Mei Chi Tan or Mei Ji Tao. Tomas Cloma renamed it Catapa Shoal with little or no effect.
Mischief Reef is centrally located in the irregular hexagon of Kalayaan Municipality. It is appro-ximately 134 nautical miles away from mainland Palawan and therefore well within the 200 mile wide EEZ of the Philippines. It was used by fishermen, mostly Filipinos, for shelter in inclement weather because of its rather good geographical features. That it lies at the periphery of the potentially oil rich Reed Bank is another cause for much concern. It should be recalled that way back in the 70’s when the Marcos government announced that a consortium of Swedish-Filipino oil companies had began drilling in the Reed Bank area, China immediately protested. Concrete markers with Chinese characters were first observed in Mischief Reef by the Philippine Navy in 1993. These were dismantled and subsequent to this that same year, the Philippine Navy also removed Chinese markers from five other separate formations in the Spratlys.
In January 1995, the captain of a Philippine fishing boat was detained by Chinese sailors for a week in Mischief Reef. In February 1995, the Princesa Seagull, a Filipino fishing boat with Kalayaan Municipal Mayor Gil Policarpio on board, was stopped from approaching Mischief Reef. The boat had supposedly developed engine trouble at sea but inspite of the distress signals its captain transmitted, the men on Mischief Reef turned Policarpio’s group back, reportedly at gunpoint. The Filipinos also reported the presence of a cluster of little huts on the reef. China denied this at first but later confirmed the presence of Chinese vessels in the area. China stressed, however, that these were for non-military purposes.
In the months that followed, clusters of structures with the flags of the People’s Republic of China were reported in four other sites in the Spratlys. China also stationed armed vessels in the area. Chinese markers were also seen in six unoccupied reefs and shoals near Palawan where Chinese fishing boats are known to focus their operations in. In response to these the Philippine Government sent Beijing a “firm advisory.” This action is just short of a formal diplomatic protest. China explained that a local fishing authority built those facilities for fishermen in the Spratlys.
Predictably, Filipino activities increased in the Municipality of Kalayaan. The Chinese occupation of Mischief Reef was especially significant because it was the first major move of any claimant to occupy a new feature in the Spratlys after the end of the Cold War. At that time, through various official and infor-mal initiatives, states in the region were trying hard to develop mechanism to address potential conflicts in the area and ways to manage in more general terms the region’s security situation. The Chinese move was perceived as a violation of the 1992 Manila Declaration (which was a response to the February 25, 1992 Law of the People’s Republic of China). It undermined the region’s confidence-building process and threatened to spur other claimants of the Spratlys to follow the Chinese example. In March 1995 four Chinese fishing boats with a total of 62 fishermen on board were apprehended by the Armed Forces of the Philippines near the Alicia Annie Reef, around thirty nautical miles south of Mischief Reef. They were charged with illegal entry, illegal fishing, illegal possession of explosives and catching of protected wildlife. The Philippine government also appropriated over 175 million pesos for the construction of four lighthouses in the Spratlys. These would serve as markers of established basepoints needed to legislate a new Philippine baseline to include the KIG within its national territory. The lighthouses would thus, in effect, fortify the Philippine’s claim of the Spratlys.
In 1995 Beijing and Manila forged a “Code of Conduct” to reduce the chances of military confron-tation in and over the Spratlys. China, however, did not remove the structures it had built there. Neverthe-less the Philippine side believed that the agreement would eventually lead to a reduction of military forces from both camps or the chances of an accidental military confrontation in the Spratlys. Apparently China began systematically increasing its naval activities in the Spratlys when the United States of America withdrew its Seventh Fleet from Subic Bay. The US military base at Clark Field had also closed down and the US had terminated practically all-economic and military assistance to the Philippines.
When it became clear that China would not be convinced to leave Mischief Reef, some Filipino officials tried to draw the United States and even Japan into the dispute. The Pentagon announced that the Mutual Defense Treaty does not cover defense of the Spratlys. They are of course outside the territorial line drawn by the Treaty of Paris between Spain and the USA in 1898. The Americans promised, however, to raise the Spratlys issue with the mainland Chinese in their bilateral talks. China’s development of Mischief Reef proceeded routinely. In late 1998 China renovated the octagonal huts in Mischief Reef into two and three-story concrete structures.
Thus up to today and perhaps forever, Mischief Reef is occupied by China, rather, as China officially claims, Mei Ji Tao is Chinese territory. Come 2004 therefore, the year of UNCLOS deadline, it would be entitled to an Exclusive Economic Zone. That of course cannot be the clean sweep of a circle centered on Mischief Reef with a 200 nautical –mile radius because that would encroach on our UNCLOS recognized territory. Nevertheless there is a danger that China will move to include the Reed Bank within Mischief Reef’s EEZ. In this effort, they may be able to use the Palawan Trough to their advantage, especially if we have no maps of the KIG to our favor while China can draw their own maps of the Spratlys against us from their own data. There are very strong indications that they have done their UNCLOS homework while we have done virtually nothing at all.
Shortly after the Chinese presence was discovered in Mischief Reef, the Philippine Congress introduced a 15-year Armed Forces of the Philippines Modernization Bill. The Chinese threat also paved the way for the Philippine Senate’s ratification of the Visiting Forces Agreement or VFA which allowed American troops back in the Philippine for training and other activities in implementation of the 1951 RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty. The Department of Foreign Affairs began to consider bringing the Spratlys dispute before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. China did not want this as it would allow parties not directly concerned with the dispute to exert their influence.
So in March 1995 bilateral talks were held in Beijing. This was, however, inconclusive. President Fidel Ramos proposed the demilitarization of the Spratlys and an agreement among its claimants for its joint development. Each disputed island would be placed under the stewardship of the claimant country next to it geographically. It would also be understood that “the steward country accommodates the other claimant’s need for shelter, anchorage and other peaceful uses.” A second round of bilateral talks were held in August 1995 in Manila. This resulted in another joint statement which in retrospect hardly meant anything to our neighbors across the South China Sea.   ^ Top