The failure of the Obama administration to defend the Philippines in early 2012, in a confrontation similar to today's, emboldened China's regime to adopt an even more aggressive posture in its peripheral waters.
China claims all the waters inside the dashes are sovereign as well, terming them "blue national soil." There is no legal basis for an assertion of sovereignty of this sort.
Whitsun, which Manila calls Julian Felipe Reef, is 175 nautical miles from Palawan, an island of the Philippines. The feature is within the Philippine "exclusive economic zone"....Since December, large Chinese trawlers have lashed themselves together and parked in formations near Whitsun. Vessels come and go, but the numbers have gone up over time. They have not been engaged in fishing...
Washington [in 2012] brokered an agreement for [China and the Philippines] to withdraw their craft [from Scarborough Shoal], but only Manila complied. Beijing has been in firm control of Scarborough Shoal ever since. The Obama administration, despite the brazen Chinese seizure, decided not to enforce the agreement it had just arranged.
Worse, by doing nothing to hold China accountable for deception and aggression at Scarborough, Washington empowered the most belligerent elements in the Chinese political system by showing everybody else in Beijing that aggression worked....
James Holmes, who holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, told Gatestone that China's current actions at Whitsun are "an offensive that looks like conquest by increments." Fanell maintains that not opposing China's actions at Whitsun will soon put both Taiwan and the Senkakus at risk...Read all.
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