The Chinese Communist government announced on Wednesday that it will create a “national nature reserve” in the disputed Scarborough Shoal, using Filipino land the Chinese have occupied by force.
The announcement was clearly an effort to consolidate Beijing’s grip on the shoal despite international tribunal rulings against China’s expansive territorial claims.
The Scarborough Shoal is one of several features caught up in China’s absurd “Nine-Dash Line” land grab, in which Beijing claims dominion over most of the South China Sea, including disputed islands and waters that clearly lie within the purview of other nations. The Scarborough Shoal is only about 150 miles west of Luzon, the main island of the Philippines.
China’s claims were decisively rejected by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague in 2016, but Beijing simply ignored the ruling and set about seizing disputed territories through force.
The Scarborough Shoal, which China refers to as Huangyan Island and the Filipinos call Panatag Shoal, has been heating up as a conflict zone recently. Chinese ships have used increasingly aggressive and dangerous tactics to bully Filipino fishermen and supply ships away from the shoal. Last month, two Chinese ships managed to slam into each other while attempting to drive off a patrol boat from the Philippines.
The State Council of China, the top administrative body of the Communist tyranny, on Wednesday approved a proposal to create a “national-level nature reserve” in the Scarborough Shoal. The State Council claimed the reserve would be “an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability, and sustainability of the atoll’s natural ecosystem.”
“Relevant authorities were urged to assume full responsibility for ecological protection, strengthen leadership and coordination, improve management institutions, and step up oversight and law enforcement against any illegal activities within the nature reserve,” the State Council press release said.
“Details including the size, boundaries and functional zoning of the Huangyan Dao National-Level Nature Reserve will be announced separately by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration,” it added.
It seems like a safe bet that the boundaries of the “nature reserve” will be larger than Manila would like. The Philippine embassy in Beijing did not immediately comment on China’s announcement.
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