Huge cost to retrieve reef occupied by Philippines: expert
China has the capability, and has not ruled out the possibility, of using force to take back the Ren'ai Reef occupied by the Philippines after the pending arbitration ruling, though it does not want to see that happen because of the huge cost to both sides, experts said Monday, after the People's Daily warned that China is capable of hauling away a Philippine ship grounded at the reef.
The story of Ren'ai Reef is an exemplar of China's continuing commitment to resolving disputes through negotiations on the South China Sea issue, according to an opinion piece published in the Communist Party of China's flagship newspaper on Monday.
"China is fully capable of hauling away the lingering Philippine ship. But in order to safeguard regional stability, China maintains goodwill and patience, and exercises restraint," read the article.
It is possible to see violent conflicts between the two countries when China retakes the reef, if Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte follows his predecessor Benigno S. Aquino III, a hard-liner on the South China Sea issue, and refuses to resort to negotiations in resolving disputes or conducting large-scale construction on or around the ship after the arbitration ruling in The Hague, Liu Feng, an expert on Chinese maritime issues, told the Global Times on Monday.
Ren'ai Reef may become the first target for China to reclaim all the Nansha Islands and reefs that were illegally occupied by other countries because China has enough evidence to prove its sovereignty, and the disputes are fresh and not as entangled as other decades-old ones, Liu said.
As part of the South China Sea, Ren'ai Reef, a ring reef among China's Nansha Islands, has been part of Chinese territory since ancient times. Attempting to occupy the reef and challenging China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands, the Philippines illegally ran an old warship aground on the reef on May 9, 1999 and explained its ship was having "technical difficulties," the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Although the Philippines had on many occasions made explicit promises to China that it would tow the vessel, saying that it had no intention of building any facilities on the Chinese reef, it has never acted to remove the warship from the Chinese reef using as an excuse the "lack of parts," despite over 15 years having passed.
In fact, the country has kept sending concrete and other building materials to the grounded ship to shore it up.
China could forcibly pull the "stranded" warship away or dismantle the illegal "building" on the reef, detaining servicemen who violated China's territorial sovereignty in order to reclaim the reef, Major General Luo Yuan, a vice president of the China Strategic Culture Promotion Association, previously told the Global Times.
It would not be necessary to dispatch warships, as China's coast guard ships could quickly destroy the dilapidated ship, Liu said.
Huge costs and alternatives
Nonetheless, experts agreed that neither China nor the Philippines is able to stand the considerable costs incurred by violent confrontation.
The US, Manila's ally, will participate in the violent and even military conflicts and Sino-US ties will therefore be soured, which falls short of shared expectations by China and the US to maintain peace in the South China Sea, Chen Xiangmiao, an assistant researcher at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, told the Global Times on Monday.
"The Association of Southeast Asian Nations - China's key partner in terms of neighboring diplomacy - will have their concerns over the sea disputes deepened and drift away from China. It is detrimental to the promotion of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road proposed by China," Chen noted.
In addition, it is unnecessary for China to grab back and militarily occupy the Ren'ai Reef considering that seven Nansha reefs undergoing infrastructure construction can prepare China for any emergency across the South China Sea, an expert on Chinese maritime issues, who asked for anonymity, told the Global Times on Monday.
In the meantime, Liu noted the new Philippine government could hardly bear the domestic criticism over its likely defeat in any self-invited conflict with China, given similar reactions to Huangyan Island, which China got back because of a series of provocations by the Philippines in 2012.
Thus, Chen expects continuous mild countermeasures adopted by China against the "stranded" warship on Ren'ai Reef, citing cutting off supplies.
Chinese coast guard vessels, patrolling Ren'ai Reef, expelled two Philippine ships loaded with construction materials and carrying the flag of the Philippines from the reef in 2014, Xinhua reported.
It was the first time that China took practical measures to make representations to Manila, whereas it had resorted to diplomatic channels.
Chen also suggested establishing an ecological preservation area around the reef to enable the Chinese coast guard to strengthen patrols.
