South China Sea: China Should Tow Away the Sierra Madre

"This summer should be the time for action ... thanks to this bloodless operation, everybody in the Western Pacific would see who truly calls the shots here today!"

Tensions have been rising between China and the Philippines in recent months. Water cannons have been fired, ships have collided and sailors have been injured. Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. stated yesterday that if a Filipino citizen were to be killed by a “wilful act”, then “that is I think very, very close to what we define as an act of war, and we will respond accordingly”. Some Chinese scholars have argued that the South China Sea is a more likely flashpoint than even Taiwan.

The most salient point of contention between Beijing and Manila is the Second Thomas Shoal (Ren'ai Jiao in Chinese), a submerged reef in the Spratly Islands just over 100 miles west of the Philippines, which both countries claim sovereignty over. In recent years, Beijing has increasingly attempted to block Manila from resupplying marines stationed on the Sierra Madre, a rusting ship that the Philippines grounded there in 1999. Beijing now accuses Manila of reneging on an alleged agreement