China has not taken over a disputed islet near a key Philippines island despite a provocative Chinese coast guard operation last month to plant a flag on the reef, the State Department said.
“China’s provocative flag unfurling is detrimental to preserving peace and stability in the region and is the latest example of its repeated escalatory and irresponsible actions in the South China Sea,” a State Department official told The Washington Times.
“Contrary to media reports, China has not ‘seized’ Sandy Cay and the feature remains unoccupied,” the official said.
Washington remains in close communications with Philippines officials regarding the attempt to assert Chinese sovereignty, the official said.
Chinese state media announced recently that its coast guard in mid-April carried out a “maritime control” activity over what Beijing calls Tiexian Reef and the Philippines calls Sandy Cay.
Reports showed a group of camouflaged Chinese troops holding a flag there in a bid to assert sovereignty over the small islet in the Spratly Islands.
Days after the photo of the Chinese flag was published, troops from the Philippine coast guard, navy and police landed on the 180-square-yard reef and were photographed holding a Philippines flag on April 25.
On Tuesday, Chinese warships were dispatched to the area amid official charges by Beijing that the Philippines is engaged in “disturbances.”
The Philippines military said in a statement, also on Tuesday, that U.S. and Philippines air forces carried out a joint patrol over the South China Sea to highlight joint defense cooperation. The air patrol included three Philippines FA-50 fighter jets, two U.S. B-1B bombers, two F-16s and an F-18.
The dual flag-planting and claims over the reef are the latest round in mounting tensions between Beijing and Manila in the South China Sea.
Sandy Cay is less than three miles from the Philippines island of Pagasa that hosts military forces and a civilian population.
Pegasa, also called Thitu Island, is the location of a Japanese-built radar system and is used for training by the Philippine navy’s special warfare group.
The island also has a coast guard base that was set up in 2023 to counter what Manila called Chinese aggression in the region.
China claims 90% of the South China Sea, including the Spratlys, which are near the main Philippines island of Luzon.
China’s South China Sea sovereignty claim was struck down as illegal by an international arbitral tribunal in 2016, although China rejected the ruling and has continued provocative actions in a bid to assert control over the South China Sea.
The sea is a major strategic waterway that sees between an estimated $3.5 trillion and $5 trillion annually in trade.
China’s military has seized a number of disputed islands since 2012 and built military bases on several that are now armed with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles.
China and the Philippines recently have engaged in a series of low-level confrontations in the region involving the ramming of vessels, the firing of water cannon by Chinese ships and, in at least two cases, China’s use of lasers against Philippines aircraft and vessels.
The State Department has declared several times in recent years that any Chinese attack on the Philippines over disputed islands could trigger the U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty.
However, Navy forces have taken no action to intervene in the sea confrontations.
China’s state CCTV broadcaster said the landing on Sandy Cay was designed to “exercise sovereignty and jurisdiction,” to carry out an “inspection,” and “collect video evidence regarding the illegal activities of the Philippine side.”
The People’s Liberation Army said Tuesday that the southern theater command dispatched warships in the South China Sea on routine patrols.
“Recently, the Philippines has been frequently carrying out maritime infringement provocations, creating disturbances and pulling in countries from outside the region to organize so-called ’joint patrols,’” it said.
“Troops in the theater of operations are maintaining a high level of alert, resolutely defending the country’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and resolutely safeguarding peace and stability in the South China Sea region.”
The Chinese sovereignty claim over Sandy Cay has raised concerns among U.S. and Philippines officials that the operation there will signal a new expansion of the Chinese military’s island reclamation project.
In 2012, China took over Scarborough Shoal in the Spratlys and the Obama administration took no action against the takeover.
The lack of a response set in motion a major Chinese island-building campaign that resulted in new PLA bases on several reefs, including Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef.
Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, a former Pacific Fleet intelligence director, said the latest attempted island grab by China is “another step in the continuation of the [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party’s Great Rejuvenation strategy to ‘restore’ territory they falsely assert is theirs.”
“The world has witnessed, since 2012 at Scarborough Shoal, the People’s Republic of China take physical possession and control of the vast majority of the South China Sea,” he said in an email.
Capt. Fanell said more than a decade of “doing nothing” against the Chinese maritime sovereignty campaign demonstrates that U.S. resolve has eroded and that American national security and naval forces in the Pacific are at great risk, as well as those of U.S. allies.
He urged the Trump administration to counter the Chinese maritime aggression by dispatching Navy warships to the sea. “It is long past time to dispatch the Seventh Fleet to these waters to prevent or disrupt any PRC effort to seize another inch of territory from our treaty ally,” he said.
“This is not a call to war, but a call to stand up and push back.”
Carl O. Schuster, also a retired Navy captain, said the photo op on Sandy Cay appears to be a variant of China’s 1990s tactic of planting “border” markers on uninhabited atolls, islets and cays.
The objective is to create false evidence used to back the Beijing narrative of ownership over the South China Sea.
Philippines authorities landing on the Cay and photographing their flag seek to counter the Chinese operation.
“This incident was a test to determine how Manila and Washington would react,” Capt. Schuster said.
“Had the Philippines done nothing but protest, the PRC would have initiated the next step — construction of a ‘fishing shelter’ for its fishing community operating in the area,” he said. “However, Manila’s response has interrupted China’s narratives and immediate plans.”
The current standoff in the South China Sea comes as U.S. military forces are engaged in a major annual exercise with the Philippines known as Balikatan.
The exercises have included the deployment of long-range U.S. land-attack missiles and a new remotely controlled anti-ship missile system.
The exercises and the missile deployments were denounced by China as destabilizing.
