Fleet of 30 Chinese fishing boats plies reef in Spratlys

A Chinese flag greeted the fleet of boats as they reached Fiery Cross Reef.
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A fleet of 30 Chinese fishing boats arrived at the disputed waters of Yongshu or Fiery Cross reef on July 15 to declare that sovereignty over the Spratly chain in the South China Sea belongs to China, reports Hong Kong's Phoenix Television.

After a 78-hour voyage from Sanya in China's southern island province of Hainan, the Chinese fishermen were happy to see a Chinese flag flying over the reef, together with a structure carrying the words "Long Live the Motherland" in Chinese. The fishing vessels will spend five to ten days in the disputed waters around the reef, a well-known breeding ground for tuna.

Zhang Jie from the China Academy of Social Sciences told Phoenix Television that fishing around the Fiery Cross Reef is more a political than economic act because the fishermen are defending their rights in the disputed waters. It is also a way for the Chinese government to stake its sovereignty over the entirety of the Spratlys through the cooperation of civilians, Zhang said. "We are now trying various ways to protect our rights over the Spratly islands," said Zhang, "Usually we had more words than action, but things are different now."

The Spratly archipelago is a group of some 750 reefs, islets, atolls and islands in the South China Sea that are claimed in whole or in part by China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, making it the area of the South China Sea with the greatest number of claimants. Around 45 of the islands are occupied by small numbers of military forces from the first five countries. Its largest island, Taiping Island, is occupied by Taiwan.

With Chinese civilians working in the waters, this gives Beijing a reason to send fishery administration ships into the region to protect its citizens as a way of enforcing the sovereignty claim it recently laid down by establishing the administrative district of Sansha over the Paracels, Spratlys and Macclesfield Bank — known respectively as Xisha, Nansha and Zhongsha in Chinese.