Mischief Reef shows what happens when a country changes the facts on the water faster than the world can respond.
Aninag Intel’s analysis is a thoughtful examination of how strategic complacency has allowed the situation around Mischief Reef to evolve. Its warning is difficult to ignore: while Southeast Asia relies on diplomatic assurances, facts on the water can change irreversibly.
But from the Philippine perspective, this goes beyond ASEAN’s strategic naivety. It is a direct challenge to Philippine sovereignty, our fishermen, and the international law that protects our maritime rights.
In 1995, China built structures on Mischief Reef, inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, and called them shelters for fishermen. Today, those ‘shelters’ form a major Chinese military outpost, complete with an airfield, radar systems and military infrastructure. The transformation says more than Beijing’s assurances ever could.
In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the world that China did not intend to pursue militarization of the Spratly Islands. What followed turned that assurance into diplomatic cover.
For Chairman Emeritus Dr. Jose Antonio Goitia, the principle is simple: ‘China cannot turn water cannons into international law.’
Building on a reef does not create sovereignty over it. Neither do artificial islands, military installations or coast guard deployments.
The 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award found Mischief Reef to be a low-tide elevation within the Philippines’ EEZ and continental shelf and ruled that it is incapable of appropriation. It further found that China’s construction there, without Philippine authorization, violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights under UNCLOS. The ruling is final and binding. Yet Beijing continues to act as though persistence can outlast the law.
Its coast guard and maritime militia have harassed Philippine vessels, intimidated Filipino fishermen and obstructed legitimate Philippine operations. This is gray-zone coercion designed to pressure the Philippines and gradually alter the status quo without triggering open conflict.
The Philippines cannot allow that to become normal.
Filipino fishermen do not become intruders in Philippine waters because Chinese vessels are larger or better armed. Our rights do not disappear because Beijing refuses to recognize them.
As Goitia puts it: ‘Force does not create sovereignty.’
No number of ships or amount of concrete poured into the South China Sea can change that.
The Philippines is not seeking war with China. It wants its maritime rights respected, its fishermen protected and international law honored. Nothing more radical than that.
For ASEAN, Mischief Reef should be a cautionary tale. Diplomacy cannot become an excuse for allowing coercion to harden into a new status quo. Regional peace depends not simply on dialogue, but on whether international law can restrain those willing to violate it.
The Philippines can pursue dialogue without surrendering principle and seek peace without accepting intimidation. Beijing may control the concrete it poured on Mischief Reef.
It does not control the law. And it does not own Philippine waters.
Dr. Jose Antonio Goitia, Juris Doctor, PhD, is Chairman Emeritus of Alyansa ng Bantay sa Kapayapaan at Demokrasya (ABKD), People’s Alliance for Democracy and Reforms (PADER), Liga Independencia Pilipinas (LIPI), and the Filipinos Do Not Yield Movement (FDNY). He holds advanced degrees, including an MNSA, MPA, and MBA, among others.