From the decks of battered fishing boats, the struggle over Scarborough Shoal has entered a new, precarious phase.
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As China steps up its patrols, Filipino fishers say they are being forced to abandon seas their families have plied for generations – raising fears that what’s unfolding at the reef could become the playbook for Beijing’s wider South China Sea ambitions.
The Chinese coastguard’s intensified enforcement of a controversial anti-trespassing law is the latest move in China’s campaign to tighten its hold over the rocky outcrop, located just 220km (137 miles) from the Philippines’ main island and squarely within Manila’s exclusive economic zone.
The warnings from fishers come as a fresh report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, published on Monday, cautioned that China’s expanding footprint around Scarborough Shoal risks cementing its de facto control – raising the spectre of future miscalculations in these disputed waters.
Constant patrols by the Chinese coastguard have driven Filipino fishers as far as 40 nautical miles (74km) from the shoal, according to Leonardo Cuaresma, head of the New Masinloc Fishermen’s Association in Zambales.
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“If we go beyond that, the Chinese coastguard will chase us or hit us with water cannons. Even our Philippine coastguard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessels are also subjected to water cannons,” Cuaresma told This Week in Asia.