MASINLOC, Philippines (Reuters) – For decades, fishermen along the northwestern Philippine coast treated the teeming fishing grounds of the Scarborough Shoal as their backyard, less than a day’s boat ride away.
Now, they see it as a foreign country.
“I lost my livelihood when we lost the Scarborough Shoal to the Chinese,” said Mario Forones, a 53-year-old who owns three fishing boats that worked the reef for about a dozen years before armed Chinese vessels arrived in force last April.
Reuters interviews with fishermen in two coastal Philippine towns – some of whom tried to fish the shoal as recently as this month – show how the Philippines has effectively ceded sovereignty of the reef about 124 nautical miles off its coast after a naval stand-off last year.
China’s consolidation and expansion of its grip on the disputed South China
Sea looms over a gathering of Southeast Asian leaders in the tiny kingdom of Brunei this week as they try to kick start stalled efforts to ease one of Asia’s biggest security flashpoints.
Beijing claims almost the entire sea as its territory based on historical records, setting it directly against US allies Vietnam and the Philippines, while Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also lay claim to parts. Except for China and Taiwan, all the claimants are members of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Diplomats hope leaders at the two-day ASEAN summit starting tomorrow can put aside bitter differences that emerged last year and pave the way for China to join a proposed dispute-management mechanism.
But the fishermen’s accounts vividly show how China’s expanding, assertive naval reach could be overtaking diplomatic efforts to ease a crisis whose stakes have risen with the US military’s “pivot” to refocus its forces on Asia.
In rare first-hand descriptions of the situation at the remote outcrop claimed by both China and the Philippines, the men described being chased off aggressively by large, fast-moving, white Chinese ships armed with guns and rockets. In recent months, they said the Chinese vessels had laid down thick undersea ropes to keep fishing boats out.
“I don’t know the specifics of the situation,” said Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when asked by Reuters to comment on the fishermen’s accounts. “But as you know, the Scarborough Shoal is indisputably part of China’s territory, and China will ensure that its sovereignty over this area is not being violated.”
The 10-member ASEAN aims to agree a legally binding Code of Conduct to manage maritime conduct in disputed areas, but prospects for quick progress appear dim.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told Reuters in an interview that the summit would mostly be about “making sure that things do not regress”.
Even if they agree, China has said it will only join talks when the time is “ripe” and that countries should first build trust by observing a weaker Declaration of Conduct (DOC) signed in 2002, which has so far failed to dampen tensions.
