Earlier this month I wrote about Second Thomas Shoal, the little reef in the Spratly islands which only has an elevation at low tide. Way back in 1999 the Philippines ran an old US warship (the Sierra Madre) aground in order to lay claim to the territory. China, which claims nearly all of the South China Sea belongs to them, has been fuming about it ever since.

Having already seized and militarized another island just a few miles away, China has been hoping to do the same to this one. However, the rusting Sierra Madre and the handful of Philippine military personnel who stay aboard it have prevented that so far. But that’s not for a lack of China’s trying to disrupt the supply runs of food and replacement personnel that routinely visit the shoal from the Philippines. China has turned lasers and water cannons on resupply boats. It attempted a physical blockade of another resupply mission and most recently it even rammed a smaller boat, fortunately without doing any damage.

Today, a US Navy littoral combat ship called the USS Gabrielle Giffords made a visit to the area of Second Thomas Shoal which, as you can imagine, did not please the Chinese.

Chinese forces are “on high alert” in the South China Sea after a United States naval ship sailed close to a tiny disputed island that is becoming the focus of international tension in the strategic sea lane.

Beijing reacted angrily to the passage of the USS Gabrielle Giffords, a coastal combat ship, through waters close to Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands…

“The US deliberately disrupted the situation in the South China Sea, seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and seriously violated international law and basic norms governing international relations,” a statement by the southern theatre command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army said. “The US is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea.

In addition to the government response there were sternly worded editorial in a couple of state media outlets. Here’s a bit of the one from China Daily:

All can clearly see that it is the US that is deliberately stirring up trouble in the waters with its own boorish behavior and its attempt to embolden the Philippines in its dispute with China over the reef. The US and the Philippines held their first joint air and sea patrol in the South China Sea in years late last month with the PLA responding with a large-scale live-fire drill. In its latest move, the US military sent its littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords to cruise in waters near China’s Ren’ai Reef of the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea on Monday…

The US’ support for the Philippines, which is intended to turn the maritime dispute that Manila and Beijing have both agreed should be resolved through negotiations and dialogue into the flashpoint for a regional conflict, stems from its self-serving calculation of making regional countries collateral for its China-containment strategy.

And over at the Global Times former Chinese mouthpiece Hu Xijin also called it a provocation.

Chinese coast guard ships have had multiple confrontations with Philippine vessels near Ren’ai Reef this year, and a collision occurred in October. The arrival of the US ship at Ren’ai Reef at this time is intended to support the Philippines and is a dangerous demonstration and provocation. This time, China took the initiative to announce the incident, indicating that China has no intention of handling the matter quietly but rather quickly presenting the situation to the world. This demonstrates the firm military posture of the Southern Theater Command and also shows China’s determination to defend territorial sovereignty and not make concessions to the illegal claims of the Philippines supported by the US.

Both of these accounts are completely self-serving and have almost no connection to actual events. It has repeatedly been China which has attempted to escalate the situation near Second Thomas Shoal and their behavior became well known because the Philippines began inviting western journalists to travel with them and film what China was doing.

As for the statement made by Hu Xijin that the claims of the Philippines and the US are “illegal” this is also nonsense. As I spelled out in more detail here the legality of China’s claim to the shoal has already been settled before a UN tribunal in 2016. That 450-page decision gave no merit to China’s territorial claims based on the nine-dashed line. China has of course ignored the ruling and has resorted to the kind of bullying noted at the top of this post. But the appearance of the USS Giffords in the area today suggests it’s not going to work as they hoped.