Philippine Navy ship BRP Sierra Madre. PHOTO/Reuters
As quoted by Reuters on Thursday (11/25/2021), Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana rejected China’s statement on Wednesday that the Philippines had committed to removing the BRP Sierra Madre, which purposely landed on the Second Thomas shoal in 1999 to strengthen Manila’s claim to sovereignty in the Philippines. the Spratly Islands.
The 100-meter-long tank landing ship was built for the United States Navy during World War II. “The ship has been around since 1999. If there was a commitment, it would have been removed a long time ago,” Lorenzana told reporters.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Wednesday said Beijing “demands the Philippines side honor its commitments and remove its illegally grounded vessels”. The Second Thomas Shoal, located 195km from Palawan, was the temporary home of a small military contingent aboard a rusty ship, which was stuck on the reef.
Lorenzana accused China of “violating” when its coast guard disrupted a supply mission for troops. China claims most of the South China Sea as its own, using the “nine-dash line” on a map that an international arbitration award in 2016 said had no legal basis.
Read: Philippines accuses Chinese ship of firing water cannon at its ship
The Second Thomas Shoal is within the Philippines’ 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone, as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), signed by China.
“We have two documents proving that we have sovereign rights in our EEZ while they don’t, and their claims have no basis,” Lorenzana said. “China must comply with its international obligations of which it is a part,” he continued.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said at a summit hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping that he “hated” China’s recent actions in the region.
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