The 'BRP Sierra Madre', a marooned transport ship which Philippine Marines live on as a military outpost, is pictured in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea on March 30, 2014. (Erik De Castro/Reuters)
A rusty World War II ship in the South China Sea has become a symbol of defiance in the face of Chinese aggression.
Twenty-five years ago, the Philippines strategically grounded its naval vessel BRP Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the Spratly Islands, composed of over 100 small islands and reefs.
The shoal lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, an area within 200 nautical miles of a nation’s coastal line that gives the country rights to use natural resources in the water. It lies within a region of the South China Sea that’s disputed between China, the Philippines, and other nations.
The U.S.-built BRP Sierra Madre is not just a ship but a concrete marker of the country’s territorial claim in disputed waterways that, in recent years, has seen rising acts of aggression and harassment by Chinese vessels.
Although in a much-deteriorated state, the ship still serves the same purpose today.
Tensions escalated to a new level in 2023. In that year alone, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, tracked five major conflicts involving the Chinese Coast Guard using water canons and lasers on Philippine vessels.
This year, Beijing continued attacking Philippine vessels with water cannons and even seized boats with long knives and axes and injured a number of Philippine navy personnel, including one who lost his right thumb—all in attempts to block the Philippines from restocking supplies to its Marines stationed on the ship.
Short of using firearms, Beijing has kept its aggression below the threshold of triggering the U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty, which obligates the United States to respond to an armed attack on the Philippines.
In its talks with Manila in July, Beijing demanded the BRP Sierra Madre be towed away. An unoccupied Second Thomas Shoal would allow a takeover by the Chinese regime, just like the Scarborough Shaol, another feature within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone that Beijing seized more than a decade ago.
Chinese Coast Guard hold knives and machetes as they approach Philippine troops on a resupply mission in the Second Thomas Shoal at the disputed South China Sea on June 17, 2024. (Armed Forces of the Philippines via AP)
Philippines Confronts China
Although a United Nations’ Law of the Sea tribunal in 2016 concluded that the Second Thomas Shoal belonged to the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte downplayed the ruling as a “piece of paper.”
Within months of taking office in 2016, he prioritized trade with China and announced his country would “realign” with the communist country. Beijing inked an $11 billion investment deal with the Philippines, promising more than 14 projects.
However, five years into Duterte’s term, the projects showed no sign of completion, except for one bridge worth $69 million. When the current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., began his term in 2022, he took a U-turn in his China policy and aligned with the United States.
“I think that the Philippines felt fooled by China. We gave a lot, but then we didn’t get anything in return, not as much as we expected,” Andrea Chloe Wong, a non-resident fellow at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs, a think tank in New Zealand, told The Epoch Times.
“He [Marcos] doesn’t want to make the same mistake again,” said Wong, who is based in the Philippines.
China claims the Second Thomas Shoal and the rest of the Spratly Islands through its “nine-dash line,” a u-shaped line that circles most of the South China Sea and overlaps with the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Although the nine-dash line was rejected by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the 2016 tribunal decision, Beijing has insisted on it and added a 10th dash by circling Taiwan in its new China map released last September.
Throughout the years, the Chinese Coast Guard has patrolled the u-shaped route by entering other nations’ waters determined by international laws.
A Chinese Coast Guard ship uses water canons on a Philippine Coast Guard ship near the Philippine-occupied Second Thomas Shoal, South China Sea, as they blocked its path during a re-supply mission on Aug. 5, 2023. (Philippine Coast Guard via AP)
According to Rommel Jude Ong, former vice commander of the Philippines Navy, Beijing wants to control the South China Sea because it needs to use the waterways as a base to project its power and achieve its global maritime ambitions.
In addition, the South China Sea is a resource-rich area with a critical shipping route.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates billions of barrels of petroleum and several trillion cubic feet of natural gas under the disputed Spratly Islands.
About $3.4 trillion worth, or one-fifth, of global trade passes through the South China Sea annually. Last year, shipping through the area included 10 billion barrels of petroleum and petroleum products and 6.7 trillion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas, according to the United States Energy Information Agency.
Over half of the world’s fishing boats are estimated to operate in the South China Sea, with the waters accounting for over 10 percent of global fish catch in 2015. For the Philippines, fisheries provide over 1.5 million jobs and protein for half of the 120 million population, according to the World Bank.
After repeatedly losing properties in the Spratly Islands to China—Mischief Reef in 1995 and Scarborough Shoal in 2012, “the Second Thomas Shoal is very sacred to the Philippine government,” said Wong.
China occupied both Mischief and Scarborough by force and became the de facto owner despite the 2016 tribunal ruling that they belong to the Philippines.
Ong, currently a professor at the Philippines’ Ateneo School of Government, said the BRP Sierra Madre had become a symbol of the Philippines’ “willingness to fight or willingness to resist” China.
“It is also a symbol that we need to do a lot more work on strategy and capacity building as well, and that ship symbolizes a lot of gaps that we need to fill up over time,” he told The Epoch Times, commenting on the vessel’s aged condition.
He said his country needs to increase its navy ships and learn when to pull in the alliances when dealing with China. In his view, the Philippines needs to prove its agency and know that allies and partners may not come to the rescue if their security priorities don’t overlap with the Philippines’.
That explains why the Philippines turned down a U.S. offer to intervene, potentially escorting the resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre.
The deliberately grounded Philippine ship BRP Sierra Madre is shown serving as a Philippine outpost on the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea on March 9, 2023. (Jam Sta Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)
Michael Shoebridge, founder and director of the think tank Strategic Analysis Australia, believes that many regional players are pursuing security independence with support from allies and partners.
“You need to invest in your own defense and security, so you can’t free-ride on the Americans. And if you’ve got other powerful partners like Japan, Australia, or South Korea, and you’re investing in your own, then that is the right path,” he told The Epoch Times.
Manila engaged in diplomatic talks with Beijing and reached an agreement on July 21 on resupply missions at the Second Thomas Shoal. However, the two nations disputed the agreed terms immediately afterward.
Beijing said it would allow a “humanitarian resupply of living necessities” with the condition that Manila notify Beijing prior to any supply missions and allow Beijing to verify that no construction materials are included. In response, Manila said the Chinese statement regarding prior notification and on-site confirmation was “inaccurate.”
On July 19, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the United States would “do what is necessary with the Philippines” to support reprovisioning the ship, which he reaffirmed as covered by the U.S.-Philippine mutual defense treaty.
The United States on July 30 pledged $500 million in military funding to help the Philippines modernize its armed forces and coast for regional security. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called the amount “unprecedented” and said it “sends a clear message of support for the Philippines.”
Rising Resistance to Beijing
Since 2013, China has been building civilian-military dual-use artificial islands on reefs it occupied in the South China Sea.
Yet much has changed in the past 10 years.
China’s neighbors have grown wary of its aggressions. At the same time, the United States adopted an “open and free Indo-Pacific” concept during the Trump administration and made significant progress under President Joe Biden.
In a 2024 “State of Southeast Asia” survey conducted by Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, nearly half of the respondents chose “China’s economic and military power could be used to threaten my country’s interests and sovereignty” as the reason for their distrust of Beijing. The survey gathered opinions from scholars, analysts, businessmen, and governmental officials.
A woman holds a placard during a protest marking the 8th anniversary of the 2016 arbitration ruling over China's claims in the South China Sea, in Quezon City, Philippines, July 12, 2024. (Lisa Marie David/Reuters)
David Arase, a professor of international politics at Johns Hopkins University, said China made a “fundamental miscalculation” about its ability to prevail in the South China Sea with carrots and sticks.
“I don’t think China understands that these small actors, who are insignificant compared to China’s size in wealth and military power, still have remarkable resilience and agency, an ability to determine the conditions of their own existence,” he told The Epoch Times.
When the Philippines lost the Mischief Reef in 1995 and Scarborough Shoal in 2012, the United States didn’t address the issues head-on publicly.
However, in 2019, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the 1951 U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty would apply to sea conflicts over public vessels. The U.S. Department of State reaffirmed the commitment after Philippine service members were injured in a violent face-off with China last month.
Two years before that, the Trump administration introduced the “free and open Indo-Pacific” concept.
According to Chen Yu-cheng, a senior research fellow at the Center for Contemporary China Studies at the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan, the United States’s role wasn’t very clearly defined when the strategy was initially crafted. In his view, the Biden administration extended its predecessors’ efforts by developing more security, diplomatic, and economic partnerships that boosted regional players’ confidence in pushing back on China.
Arase gives the Biden White House “a lot of credit” because they understand that “the free and open Indo-Pacific is really about diplomacy and relationships. It’s not really about trying to scare, bully, or overpower others.
“It’s more about persuading other countries that we’re all better off if we continue to live under this rules-based order.”
He said the United States got the message across and won partners who don’t necessarily love America but understand its role in maintaining order so small countries’ rights are respected.
Shoebridge with Strategic Analysis Australia said if the BRP Sierra Madre became uninhabitable, it would still be a win for Beijing. Therefore, he suggests replacing the vessel with a more solid structure, such as an oil and gas exploration platform that can be re-supplied via helicopters.
“It would be a tangible manifestation of the free and open Indo-Pacific in the face of Chinese aggression,” he said.
Terri Wu is a Washington-based freelance reporter for The Epoch Times covering education and China-related issues. Send tips to [email protected].
