Yesterday, at a regular press conference hosted by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, a reporter mentioned that the Philippine Armed Forces spokesman Aguilar said a few days ago that the Philippine government is considering building a permanent civilian structure at Ren'ai Jiao, such as a lighthouse or a marine scientific research center.
Combined with the news that the Philippine Congress has approved a budget resolution of 1.79 million US dollars some time ago to support the construction of a permanent base at Ren'ai Jiao in 2024, it can be confirmed that the Philippines does have a plan to reclaim land at Ren'ai Jiao.
In this regard, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said: "Ren'ai Jiao is part of China's Nansha Islands, and China's indisputable sovereignty over Nansha Islands, including Ren'ai Jiao, and its adjacent waters, which has been formed and established in the course of a long history, and is in line with international law, including the UN Charter." The Philippines relied on the so-called award in the illegal and invalid South China Sea arbitration case to assert that Ren'ai Jiao belongs to the Philippines' exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, and that it is untenable in law to deny China's territorial sovereignty over Ren'ai Jiao, which violates the principles of international law and is legally untenable. ”
Aerial view of Ren'ai Reef in Nansha
The focus of the Foreign Ministry's statement is not the above, the above statement you can understand as a normative diplomatic vocabulary, the spokesman of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry also said so, the focus is on the latter sentence, Mao Ning said:
The reason is that China is telling the Philippines that Ren'ai Jiao is an uninhabited reef and that it dares to build permanent facilities on an uninhabited reef, which is completely different in nature from building on an inhabited reef.
After the signing of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, Vietnam has built infrastructure on more than 10 islands and reefs, and China has also built seven artificial islands, but these are the islands and reefs occupied by various countries at the time of the signing of the declaration, and no country has taken action on uninhabited reefs since the signing of the declaration.
The strategic value of island-building in the South China Sea is getting bigger and bigger, and if China had not built islands, it might not have a sense of existence in the South China Sea today, and the Philippines has continued to provoke, and Thitu Island, which it occupied and held in 1971, has always been the base camp for them to declare "sovereignty" in the Spratlys, and use this as a base and countermeasure, and the Philippines wants to make trouble at Ren'ai Jiao.
On August 5, 2023, the Philippines sent two ships to trespass into the waters of Ren'ai Jiao without authorization, despite China's repeated dissuasions and warnings, on October 22, 2023, two Philippine civilian ships and two coast guard vessels trespassed into the waters adjacent to Ren'ai Jiao without the permission of the Chinese government, and on November 10, 2023, two Philippine supply vessels and three coast guard vessels trespassed into the waters adjacent to Ren'ai Jiao. On December 10, 2023, a Philippine supply vessel, an official vessel, and two coast guard vessels attempted to deliver construction supplies to a warship illegally "beached" at Ren'ai Jiao without the permission of the Chinese government, insisted on breaking into the lagoon of Ren'ai Jiao, and rammed the Chinese coast guard ship at the scene in a dangerous manner.
Looking back on the past, it is touching that the more provocative the Philippines is, the more it highlights the great strategic value of China's established islands and reefs, especially Mischief Island and Subi Island on the Philippine side, which have been built into a barrier that the Philippines cannot cross.
Taking Subi Island as an example, Subi Reef was just an isolated circular reef controlled by the 502 Formation led by General Chen Weiwen on February 25, 1988, and in September 1988, the first batch of PLA soldiers were stationed in simple bamboo stilt houses in the southwest corner of the island.
In the following two years, the bamboo stilt house was renovated into a small three-storey building, and although it was improved, the space for the reef guards to move around was less than 1,000 square meters, and the conditions were still difficult.
A third-generation stilt house on Subi Reef
For fishermen, China's role in subi Island is huge, because in 1954 all parts of the mainland began to prohibit fishermen from going to the open sea, and the Chinese fishermen in the Nansha Islands basically disappeared, and it was not until 1984 that the restrictions were lifted again to allow fishermen to carry out fishery production in the Nansha Islands.
In 1988, the Chinese army stationed at Subi Reef gave the fishermen hope, because Subi Reef is near the Twin Reefs, which can replace the Twin Reefs as the first stop for fishermen to enter the Nansha, and in 1995, the fishery administration department stationed at Mischief Reef to escort the fishermen.
The main islands and reefs in the northern part of the Spratly Islands
On January 26, 2015, China began to reclaim land on Subi Reef, which has grown from a stilt house to the second largest island in the Spratlys, with an area of up to 4.3 square kilometers.
Satellite image of Subi Island
Latest satellite image of Subi Island
Subi Island is even larger than the area of Woody Island, the capital of Sansha City, 1 square kilometer, different from the near-circular island and reef shape of Woody Island, Subi Island is distributed along the atoll, the island shape is long and narrow, the length of the roundabout is more than 20 kilometers, there are nearly 400 buildings of all kinds, including military camps, hospitals, cinemas and other living facilities, as well as military facilities such as hangars and radar stations.
Aerial view of Subi Island
A corner of Subi Island
In 2022, high-definition photos released by Philippine photographers can clearly see the PLA's newly built defense batteries and large land-based radars, and even early warning aircraft temporarily parked on the airport runway, which means that with the blessing of early warning aircraft, the PLA's advantages in the South China Sea have been greatly enhanced, and the runway of Subi Island Airport is 3,250 meters long and 60 meters wide, and there is also a taxiway and a prepared green belt, which is the airport with the highest specifications in Nansha.
Subi Airport
Because of the large amount of work and the tight construction period rarely seen in the world, even in the vicinity of the mainland, it is required to build an island with an area equivalent to Subi Island in half a year, which is probably only possible in China today, which is a multiple test of industrial strength, economic strength and organizational ability.
The South China Sea issue is complicated, involving 6 countries and 7 parties, Vietnam is also building islands on a large scale, China's seven islands are no longer enough to deal with the threat, and further construction is uninhabited islands and reefs, but uninhabited islands and reefs are limited by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, the Philippines dares to build islands in Ren'ai Jiao, and China considers Ren'ai Jiao to be uninhabited, so China's good opportunity to restart Nansha island-building has reappeared.
Vietnam continues to illegally expand Hongxu Island in Nansha
It is widely believed that the Philippine provocation was secretly provoked by the United States, but Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said,
Could it be that the Philippines' own solution is to expand Ren'ai Jiao? The reality will make him run into a bloody head again, and China's sovereignty brooks no violation.
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