Mission 'completed': Chinese floating platform gone from Scarborough Shoal

MANILA, Philippines — China has hauled out the floating platform it parked inside Scarborough Shoal, or Bajo de Masinloc, for nearly three weeks, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said Wednesday, June 17.

The removal came after Manila lodged a formal diplomatic protest and publicly accused Beijing of using the structure to gather Philippine maritime data.

Maritime patrols and aerial monitoring on Wednesday morning showed the platform was no longer at the shoal, the task force said in a statement.

"While we take note of the removal, we reiterate our principled and unyielding position: Bajo de Masinloc is and will always be an integral part of Philippine territory," it said.

The structure first surfaced on commercial satellite imagery on May 25, when a square object appeared near the shoal's southeastern entrance. Two Chinese research vessels had been spotted in the same area on May 21.

The Department of Foreign Affairs filed a formal protest against the presence of the structure in early June and demanded that the platform be pulled out. Manila warned that the structure could be the opening move toward a more permanent installation.

"What they are doing is getting data and information, and practically stealing our data," National Maritime Council spokesperson Alexander Lopez said in Filipino in a televised interview on June 11.

'Research completed'

The Chinese Embassy in Manila broke its silence on Tuesday and said the platform was a "temporary scientific research facility" set up by the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Deputy spokesperson Guo Wei described it as a "floating in-situ sampling and experimental platform" used to study the shoal's ecosystem. He said the "research mission has now been successfully completed."

Guo, who referred to Bajo de Masinloc by its Chinese name "Huangyan Dao," insisted that China’s activities were lawful under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. He urged the Philippines to "cease hyping up and politicizing China's normal scientific research activities."

The task force pushed back, saying "only the Philippines has the right to place or construct structures and conduct activities, including marine scientific research, in Bajo de Masinloc and its territorial sea." It cited "detailed surveys, official government correspondences, cartographic records and consistent acts of administration that have gone uninterrupted for centuries."

The Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine Coast Guard, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and other agencies will continue regular patrols and "lawful presence activities" around the shoal, the task force said.

Echoes of Mischief Reef

The sudden presence of the platform had set off alarm bells among defense and security officials in Manila. They pointed to China’s 1995 seizure of Panganiban Reef, which began as flimsy fishermen’s shelters and eventually turned into a fortified military base, as a precedent.

Scarborough Shoal, a triangular reef more than 100 nautical miles from Palauig, Zambales, and roughly 500 nautical miles from Hainan, has been under effective Chinese control since 2012.

PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela disclosed last week that China had also dropped additional buoys and antenna-like equipment near the platform.

A 2016 arbitral ruling invalidated China’s sweeping nine-dash-line claim in the South China Sea.

Beijing rejects the ruling, and its coast guard and maritime militia vessels continue to drive Filipino fishermen away from the shoal's resource-rich waters.