In early November I attended the Manila Dialogue on the South China Sea, where I controversially framed my opening remarks around the concept that the Philippines face a fundamentally different problem than its South China Sea neighbors. I chose the term "maritime occupation" to describe the Philippines' dilemma, and "hostile imperial power" to describe China's behavior. I later explained why I did this on the podcast I co-host with Jim Carouso.

I also explained my reasoning in a post on X:

The Philippines' situation is very different from its neighbors'. No other country has suffered the massive scale of persistent, heavy-handed PRC presence within its own lawful exclusive economic zone--one that includes a major military base (Mischief Reef) while restricting Philippine access to its own resources (fishing, oil & gas) and its own military outpost (2nd Thomas Shoal). Moreover, China is behaving like an occupation force--one which seeks to overwhelm & subdue resistance through the use of violence. The Philippines, therefore, needs to consider developing a long-term program of non-violent insurgency or resistance that draws on all instruments of its national power to exhaust the occupier's resources and convince it to withdraw.

What chased me to this conclusion? In short, I looked at the data.

Just before the conference, I took a snapshot of Chinese maritime activity in two areas of the West Philippine Sea during comparable five-day periods over the past three years. The first was Scarborough Shoal, a major fishing ground just 120 nautical miles from the west coast of Luzon that has long supported its food security and its fishing villages. 

It now "completely surrounded" by China Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels. 

The dispute over Scarborough Shoal is not new. China seized control of the feature in 2012, but it largely remained accessible to most fishermen in the years afterwards. The famous 2016 arbitration ruling in Philippines v. China--while it did not rule on the territorial dispute over the shoal--declared that traditional fishing rights must be respected by all parties. China rejected the ruling, and has recently changed the facts on the water so that the feature is essentially under a tight quarantine enforced by aggressive blocking, swarming, ramming, and use of long-range acoustic devices and water cannons:

Combined with a unilaterally imposed four-month fishing ban and a chilling threat of detention without trial, the situation has now deteriorated to the point where Philippine fishermen find their safety imperiled if they approach the shoal, and their livelihoods threatened if they do not. Meanwhile, Philippine Coast Guard and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources ships, when they do attempt to provide support, are routinely turned away 25-40 nautical miles from the shoal.

There is a similarly bleak picture down in the Spratly Islands where China, from its artificial island base at Mischief Reef (seized 1994, militarized 2015-16), now restricts Philippine access to its own outpost at Second Thomas Shoal using the same techniques as above, though after 18 months of escalation and turmoil things have now settled into a shaky truce that has allowed the Philippine Navy very limited access since July of this year.

At the same, however, China has forcibly seized effective control of nearby Sabina Shoal, which lies just 75 nautical miles from the Philippine coastline. China solidified its control after the Philippine Coast Guard was forced to withdraw its anchored BRP Teresa Magbanua in September following a five-month standoff, in which the ship was essentially starved out and attempts to resupply it were again met with similarly violent tactics.

Again it is helpful to look at this across the years to get the sense of how thoroughly the situation has changed, and how China has now expanded its blockade eastward to encompass all of Sabina Shoal.

Like at Scarborough Shoal, Philippine security vessels are now kept at least 25 nautical miles from Sabina Shoal by China's quarantining force--which is itself a violation of freedom of basic high-seas navigation rights. That would be true even if Sabina Shoal could be considered "territory" worthy of a 12-nautical mile territorial sea (it can't).

In fact, even small Philippine fishing vessels now find themselves unable to enter Sabina, a feature barely anyone was talking about this time last year.

The Philippines, its friends, neighbors and allies need to adjust their conceptual framework around the West Philippine Sea around this new reality. Let's stop talking about China's actions there as if it's a series of individual incursions and aggressions. 

This is a campaign of maritime occupation by a hostile, expansionist, imperial power.