The Philippines yesterday summoned the Chinese ambassador to protest against China’s plans to establish a military garrison on the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The foreign department said it summoned Ma Keqing to lodge the complaint, and also to object to the arrival of a military-escorted Chinese fishing fleet near the contested Spratly Islands. The Chinese defence ministry announced plans to operate troops from Chinese-held Sansha or Woody Island in the Paracels on Monday, a month after Beijing designated the island as China’s administrative centre for both the Paracel and Spratly groups. While the Philippines does not have territorial claims on the Paracels, foreign department spokesman Raul Hernandez said the Chinese plan to administer both island groups from Sansha was unacceptable. “The Philippine government has expressed its grave concern and registered its strong protest over the Chinese government decision to establish a military garrison in Woody Reef,” Hernandez told reporters. China claims sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, which is believed to hold vast amounts of oil and gas, while the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam each claim portions. Disputes have flared in recent weeks, with Vietnam and the Philippines criticising what they call Chinese encroachment. China and South Vietnam once administered different parts of the Paracels but after a brief conflict in 1974, Beijing took control of the islands. The Philippine foreign department said it summoned the Chinese ambassador over the garrison plans as well as to receive a strong objection to China’s dispatch of a military-backed fishing fleet in Spratly waters. The Filipino coast guard monitored a fleet of 29 fishing vessels, a cargo vessel, and three other ships including one Chinese navy vessel near Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef on July 18, Hernandez said. “The use of armed government vessels to escort fishing vessels that conduct non-fishing activities is a violation of Philippine territory and a violation of obligation of states under international law,” Hernandez said. Vietnam also lashed out at China’s moves. Hanoi filed a formal protest with Beijing against the plan outlined by China this week to station troops in Sansha. Beijing’s garrison plan “violates international law, seriously violates Vietnam’s sovereignty... and is invalid,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said. China attracted Hanoi’s ire—and sparked a series of rare protests in the Vietnamese capital—when it last month designated Sansha as its administrative centre for the Paracels and the Spratly Islands. The state-backed China National Offshore Oil Corporation also announced it was welcoming bids to explore oil blocks in the disputed waters, a week after Vietnam adopted a law placing the Spratlys under its sovereignty. Nghi said that China must revoke its “wrongdoings” and urged “friendly and cooperative” relations in order to “maintain peace and stability” in the South China Sea. Taiwan, one of several claimants to portions of the Spratly chain, plans to boost firepower at its base on that archipelago’s biggest island Taiping from next month, Taipei’s coastguard said yesterday. Taiwan will add longer-range artillery and mortars to weaponry deployed in the South China Sea, officials and media said yesterday. An undisclosed number of 40mm artillery and 120mm mortars will be transported next month to Taiping Island, the biggest in the Spratly archipelago, the United Evening News reported. “True, the weapons will be shipped to Taiping in August but we can’t reveal the specific date,” said a spokesman for Taiwan’s coast guard, which is in charge of Taiping’s defence and has placed a 130-strong force there. According to the newspaper, the range of the 120mm mortars is 6.1km, compared with 4.1km for the mortars currently in use by Taiwanese coastguards on Taiping Island. Meanwhile, the range of the 40mm artillery is 10km, 30 percent further than the guns currently deployed, it said. Calls for an increase in Taiwan’s defence capability in the Spratlys have been on the rise, with rival claimants deploying more troops and adding military facilities in the area. In May, Taiwanese coastguards said the number of intruding Vietnamese boats last year surged to 106, up from 42 the year before. All claimants except Brunei have troops based on the archipelago of more than 100 islets, reefs and atolls, which have a total land mass of less than five square kilometres. AFP