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Philippine Marine Sanctuary in Disputed Sea Risks Upsetting China

by Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI --

   A marine sanctuary proposed by the Philippine president inside a
   contested South China Sea shoal risks upsetting rival claimant China
   despite an ecological mission and a recent thaw in relations with the
   Asian superpower.

   Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told local media in late November
   he planned to issue an executive order declaring the triangle of water
   inside Scarborough Shoal a no-fishing zone. Duterte said he had
   notified his Chinese counterpart of his intention for the shoal,
   encompassing about 158 square kilometers (58 square miles) of water.

   Competing claims

   China and the Philippines have tried since August to repair relations
   damaged in part by competing claims to the tiny land form 198
   kilometers (123 miles) west of Luzon Island. Vessels from China and the
   Philippines entered a two-month standoff at the shoal in 2012. The
   president's order would effectively reassert Philippine sovereignty.

   "Designating the Scarborough Shoal area as a marine sanctuary would be
   a renewed claim by the Philippines to sovereignty over that area," said
   Jonathan Spangler, director of the South China Sea Think Tank in
   Taipei. "Any unilateral actions that imply sovereignty are likely to
   cause friction between rival claimants, even if they are framed as
   marine conservation efforts."

   China claims about 95 percent of the South China Sea, including waters
   west of the Philippine archipelago. It has upset Manila and four other
   Asian governments since 2010 by reclaiming land for artificial islets,
   militarizing some of them and passing vessels through tracts of ocean
   claimed by other countries.

   The sea, which is about 3.5 million square kilometers (1.4 million
   square miles), ranges from Singapore to Taiwan. It's prized for
   fisheries, shipping lanes and possible fossil fuel reserves under the
   seabed.

   Better fishing

   Duterte wants the marine sanctuary to help replenish fish in the shoal
   where stocks have been depleted, Philippine National Security Adviser
   Hermogenes Esperon said at an Asia Pacific leadership meeting in Peru
   November 20.

   The adviser said the government might send civilian coast guard
   personnel to the shoal and that he hoped China would accept the marine
   conservation plan.

   Duterte visited Beijing in October and Chinese officials pledged then
   $24 billion in aid for the Philippines. The visit also eased tension
   created under Duterte's predecessor, who took Beijing to a world
   arbitration court over its maritime claims. The court ruled July 12
   that China lacked a legal basis to claim much of the sea.

   China should accept the marine sanctuary proposal as it would
   regenerate fish and avoid the question of sovereignty, said Ramon
   Casiple, executive director of the Philippine advocacy group Institute
   for Political and Electoral Reform.

   South China Sea Territorial Claims

   Two sides will talk

   The two sides agreed in October to discuss the South China Sea issue
   eventually including possible joint exploration for gas or oil.

   "Marine sanctuary, fishing rights, coast guard cooperation, access to
   Scarborough Shoal, (they are) not really touching on the sovereignty
   issue," Casiple said.

   China has not weighed in. The foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing
   said only that the Chinese claims to sovereignty over the shoal will
   not change. The marine sanctuary would need "at least tacit approval"
   from related claimants other than Manila to reduce South China Sea
   tensions, Spangler said.

   Elsewhere in the South China Sea, Taiwan formed a national park nine
   years ago at Dongsha Atoll in the Pratas archipelago to regenerate
   coral. China claims the Pratas as well but has not overtly challenged
   Taiwan's sanctuary.

   In October a city in China ordered anyone without government approval
   to avoid an ecologically unique, 301-meter-deep (987-foot) ocean
   sinkhole on a Paracel Island holding near Vietnam.

   Manila's maritime protection area may be seen as an assertion of
   sovereignty without the boldness of a military move, said Douglas
   Guilfoyle, associate international law professor at Monash University
   in Australia.

   Manila also has the right to declare it unilaterally because the shoal
   is within its 200 nautical-mile (370-km) exclusive economic zone, he
   said.

   "I don't think there's any internationally agreed definition of what a
   marine protection area means," Guilfoyle said.

   Last year the world court ruled that Britain violated international law
   in setting up a marine protected area around the Chagos Archipelago,
   which is also claimed by the nearby Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius.

   "One way of characterizing it may be in essence a peaceful assertion of
   sovereignty in that if you declare that you are going to be attempting
   to be protecting and preserving the environment in an area, the
   objective sounds laudable and the means by which you would normally do
   it would be through coast guard or fisheries inspectorate vessels, so
   it looks much less heavy handed than sending in the navy," he said.
   "But nonetheless it is a display of sovereign authority."