Feature: Foreign troops on islands and reefs of South China Sea(2)

Philippines can barely sustain low-intensity battles

Of the parties engaged in the South China Sea disputes, the Philippines has weak economic and military strengths, so it adopts a different tactic in operating the islands and reefs it occupies.

At the moment, the Philippines occupies eight islands and reefs including Zhongye Island and Mahuan Island, the former being the second largest island at Nansha, where the Philippines has migrated hundreds of civilians and 40 soldiers. According to some reports, the Philippines only stations about 60 soldiers in total on all those islands and reefs, but other information shows the total number is more than 200.

The first group of residents on Zhongye Island appeared in 2001, and buildings there include a multi-function city hall, a school, a clinic, a military post, a drinking water treatment station, a deep well, a wharf for small boats, a 1,300-meter-long airport runway, a telecommunication base station, a power plant and some farms. There are flights between the airport on Zhongye Island and the Puerto Princesa Airport in the Philippines.

The Philippines only set up some simple buildings on islands such as Xiyue and Northeast Cay, but the Philippine military built a 10-meter-tall observation tower on Mahuan Island and Nanyue Island respectively, from where soldiers can see with bare eyes all the movements on the two small islands of Flat Island and Caosha Island without having to station troops there. Besides, the Philippine warships and reconnaissance airplanes also visit these islands from time to time to keep a close eye on the movements of foreign vessels in that sea area.

The GMA7 TV station of the Philippines shot a documentary titled Guardians of Kalayaan, which described the life of soldiers garrisoning the Mahuan Island. According to information revealed by the documentary, there are four soldiers on that island now and a simple wooden barrack is built there. Philippine warship visits the island once every month to send supplies and rotate soldiers, who use M-16 assault rifle and grenade.

A high-ranking Philippine military official told Japan's Kyodo News about Philippines' South China Sea defense plan in May this year.

According to the plan, the Philippines will deploy two patrol boats and two maritime reconnaissance aircrafts on Zhongye Island, and plans to dispatch a patrol boat to permanently station the Mahuan Island and another one to Commodore Reef. It will also form the "Kalayaan Taskforce" with the scale of a marine brigade, restore the airport on Zhongye Island, and build base stations for maritime monitoring and reconnaissance system on Mahuan Island.

The Philippines announced to halt all repair works on islands it occupied at Nansha in October this year. The Philippine Minister of Defense stressed that his country had the fund to improve the facilities, but since it had filed for international arbitration, it decided to halt the works so as not to affect the court award.

In general, the Philippine military can barely sustain low-intensity battles at Nansha. Given its weak military strength, the Philippine army and air force are mainly engaged in preserving domestic order and fighting guerillas, while its navy is focused on seizing domains at the South China Sea.

The Philippines has three major naval bases, namely Cavite, Zamboanga and Cebu. Over half of its vessels and Marine Corps are deployed in the western area adjacent to the South China Sea.

According to experts, even if the Philippines has spent a huge amount of money on building modern troops, it is still in no position to enter a military game against China. What the Philippines has in mind is to accelerate its military modernization on the one hand, and further merge into the military system established by the US in the Asia Pacific on the other hand, so as to leverage on American forces.