China summons RP envoy over Scarborough incident

China’s foreign ministry has summoned a Philippine embassy official in Beijing to protest the boarding of four Chinese fishing vessels by the Philippine Navy, officials said in Manila yesterday.

Acting Foreign Secretary Lauro Baja said deputy mission chief Elizabeth Buensuceso was called last week and the protest was relayed to her verbally.

The Chinese also demanded that military patrol boats and planes leave the Scarborough Shoal, a disputed outcrop claimed by both countries where the incident took place last month.

Philippine naval officers boarded the four Chinese boats last week after they refused to leave the Scarborough Shoal where they were first seen on Jan. 15.

The military confiscated sea turtles, a protected species that the Chinese had illegally gathered. However they allowed the Chinese vessels to leave without any arrests.

Baja said the Chinese also objected to the Philippine military’s remarks that they were conducting "sovereignty patrols" around the shoal, insisting that the shoal was under Chinese control.

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said on Tuesday that "the Chinese side has made solemn representations with the Philippine side about the illegal actions by the Philippine side."

We are "asking the Philippine side to effectively respect the territorial sovereignty of China and strictly observe the consensus reached between the two sides on safeguarding regional stability in the South China Sea," he added.

The incident was the latest conflict between the two countries over the shoal, located about 135 nautical miles off the former US naval base of Subic Bay, northwest of Manila.

In a dispute last year, Philippine troops shot dead a Chinese fishing boat captain and arrested seven fishermen.

China and the Philippines are also rival claimants to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

Manila has viewed all Chinese vessels on disputed areas with suspicion after Beijing in the mid-1990s erected permanent structures on Mischief Reef, an outcrop in the Spratlys it also claims.

This latest incident has raised suspicions in Manila that China could be attempting something similar on Scarborough Shoal.

China claims the whole of the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands southwest of Scarborough, which are also claimed in whole or in part by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.