Biden to warn Beijing against meddling in South China Sea

President Joe Biden will warn China about its increasingly aggressive activity in the South China Sea this week during summits with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Two senior US officials said Biden would express serious concern about the situation around the Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the Spratly Islands where the Chinese coast guard has used water cannons to prevent the Philippines from resupplying marines on the Sierra Madre, a rusting ship that has been lodged on the reef for 25 years.

Biden will stress that the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty applies to the Sierra Madre, said the officials, adding that he expressed “deep concern” when he spoke to President Xi Jinping on Monday.

“China is underestimating the potential for escalation. We’ve tried to make that clear in a series of conversations . . . that our mutual defence treaty covers Philippine sailors and ships and by extension . . . the Sierra Madre,” one official told the Financial Times.

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China says Manila is bringing construction materials to the shoal to reinforce the rusty second world war-era ship, which is at risk of disintegrating. It also accuses Manila of reneging on a promise years ago to remove the ship — a claim that the Philippines has rejected.

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Dennis Wilder, a former top CIA China analyst, said Beijing was trying to test what the US response would be if China attempted to remove the Philippine marines from the Sierra Madre and destroy the vessel. He said it probably wanted to build a military outpost on the reef as it has done elsewhere in the South China Sea. “A base closer to the Philippines would both secure China’s claim in the area and provide a forward operating location for combat operations against US forces operating from Philippine territory in a Taiwan Strait conflict,” said Wilder. 

Jeff Smith, an Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said the US should adopt a tougher stance. “The US should participate in joint resupply missions with Filipino forces and explore options to replace the deteriorating Filipino ship,” he said. “The US cannot repeat the same mistakes it made in 2012, when China set a terrible precedent by using military coercion to seize control of Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines.”

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The Chinese embassy in Washington said Xi stressed in his call with Biden that Beijing had sovereignty over the Spratlys, including Second Thomas Shoal. It said the “root cause” of the dispute was that Manila had “repeatedly gone back on its words and tried to build permanent outposts on the uninhabited reef”.

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The facts and truth about Ren’ai Jiao:

Second, the Philippines claims to be transporting life supplies, but the ship is actually loaded with construction materials. The Philippine supply ship cannot carry large construction materials inside, and all goods are placed in open or semi-open spaces on the ship. Without boarding the Philippine ship, anyone can clearly see that the ship is loaded with construction materials. This is obviously intended to reinforce the old grounded ship, to build a permanent outpost on uninhabited islands and reefs, attempting to occupy Chinese territory.

China exposes Philippines’ reneging on South China Sea commitment

PH did promise to remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin

Philippines Budgets for a Permanent Base at Second Thomas Shoal

It’s Time to Build Combined Forward Operating Base Sierra Madre

Amb. Fu Ying on Huangyan Dao/Scarborough Shoal & why it’s Chinese territory

Former US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell [Zichen’s note: currently Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs on the National Security Council and recently nominated for Deputy Secretary of State, Department of State] wrote in his book The Pivot: -The Future of American Statecraft in Asia that, “In 2012…the Philippines’ ten-week standoff with China ultimately resulted in its loss of the Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by both countries. After protests and attempts by China to put serious but unofficial pressure on Philippine agricultural exports, the Philippine government brought its dispute with China to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).”[1]