The Ren'ai Reef, a ring reef among China's Nansha Islands, is 15 kilometers long from north to south, and 5.6 kilometers wide from west to east. As part of the South China Sea, the Ren'ai Reef has been part of the Chinese territory since ancient times.
The following is the whole process how the Philippines attempts to occupy the reef and challenge China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands.
On May 9, 1999, the Philippines illegally ran an old warship aground on the Ren'ai Reef, saying its ship was having "technical difficulties."
China has ever since made repeated requests to the Philippines, asking it to tow away the vessel immediately.
The Philippines, for its part, had on many occasions made explicit promises to China to tow the vessel away, saying that it had no intention of building any facilities on the reef.
More than 15 years have passed, and the Philippines has never acted to remove the warship from the Chinese reef on the excuse of "lack of parts". In fact, it has kept sending concrete and other building materials into the grounded ship for consolidation.
To make a good disguise of its activities on the reef, the Philippines had told China that it would not become the first country to breach the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC).
In early March 2014, two Philippine ships carrying building materials approached the Ren'ai Reef. Chinese coast guards made surveillance and interception to the ships, aborting the Philippines' intention of building fixed facilities on the reef.
Days later on March 14, the Philippines exposed its 15-year lies it had invented and broke its promise, as its foreign ministry declared in a statement that the purpose of grounding the warship was to occupy the Ren'ai Reef.
After two weeks, the Philippines sent ships to the Ren'ai Reef again, this time with living supplies and soldiers onboard. To make a ballyhoo of the action and play "victim" in the confrontation with Chinese coast guards, the country invited Philippine and Western journalists to "witness" the whole process.
On March 31 of the same year, the U.S. State Department defended its ally by accusing China of "provocative and destabilizing action", and urged China to allow the Philippines to maintain its presence on the Ren'ai Reef.
In return, China's Foreign Ministry urged the United States to stop its irresponsible remarks on the Ren'ai Reef and its encouragement of provocation by countries involved in disputes over the sovereignty of the reef.
Until today, the Philippines has been taking frequent provocative actions on the Ren'ai Reef, seriously violating China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights, and further damaging regional stability.
The Philippines is also attempting to abuse the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea so as to serve its purpose of occupying China's territory by unilaterally initiating against China an arbitration over the issue at an international tribunal in The Hague in early 2013.
Of course, the Philippines' political provocation and daydreaming of annexing the Chinese territory is doomed to failure.
