Drilling-capable Chinese ship spends 25 days in Philippine EEZ
MANILA, Philippines — A Chinese survey ship that can drill into the seabed has spent 25 days meandering inside the Philippine exclusive economic zone, including the territorial sea of Scarborough Shoal, without permit, the Philippine Coast Guard said on Friday, September 4.
Rear Adm. Jay Tarriela, PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed it has not issued a permit for the vessel to conduct scientific research.
“She is not an ordinary research ship. Operated by the Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey under China's Ministry of Natural Resources, she is drilling-capable,” Tarriela said.
The vessel, the 76-meter Haiyang Dizhi Shihao, entered the Philippines' EEZ near-midnight on August 10, based on the satellite tracking shared by Tarriela.
It spent three weeks inside the 12-nautical-mile territorial sea of Scarborough Shoal, Tarriela said.
Chinese ships have been a fixture at the triangular-shaped atoll since 2012, when Beijing took control of the shoal after a standoff with Philippine vessels.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, foreign marine scientific research inside another state's EEZ requires the coastal state's consent.
The 2016 arbitral ruling in Manila's favor struck down China's nine-dash line, found that Beijing had violated Philippine sovereign rights in its EEZ, and held that Scarborough Shoal is a rock generating only a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. China rejects the ruling.
Tarriela said the same vessel spent seven weeks surveying inside Indonesia's EEZ in the North Natuna Sea in 2021, under China Coast Guard escort, breaking off to resupply, returning, then pulling out days before the ASEAN Summit.
Even as the vessel switches off its automatic identification system from time to time, Tarriela said the Philippine side can still track it through Canada's Dark Vessel Detection program, which uses satellite radar to spot ships that are not broadcasting.
The PCG has leaned on the same system repeatedly over the past two years to track the entry of Chinese vessels in the West Philippine Sea, the part of the South China Sea that falls within its EEZ.
In late May, Chinese vessels towed a 30-square-meter floating platform into the shoal—action that prompted the DFA to file a formal protest. The platform was dismantled and hauled away in mid-June.
In September 2025, China declared a "national nature reserve" at the shoal, drawing Manila's formal diplomatic protest.
On August 4, this year, the DFA rejected new Chinese issuances tightening patrols around Scarborough Shoal and demanded they be withdrawn.
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