THE controversy over a tiny island in the South China Sea has intensified, making it the most serious standoff between China and the Philippines in the sea in recent years.

In April, the Philippines sent a warship to harass 12 Chinese fishing vessels which sailed into the waters of Huangyan Island to shelter from bad weather.

According to media reports, the Philippines has also notified China on its readiness to take the issue of the sovereignty of Huangyan Island to international arbitration. In addition, it tried to rename the island and remove the signs and monuments related to China.

Huangyan Island, a group of reefs and islets about 550 sea miles away from Hainan Island, has long provided a shelter for fishing ships from nearby islands and the mainland of China.

"For many generations we have fished in this water," said Ke Weixiu, a fisherman and native from the port of Tanmen in Hainan. However, since the 1990s, Chinese fishermen have repeatedly been harassed by Philippine warships.

According to the fisheries department under the Ministry of Agriculture, four Chinese fishing boats were intercepted by the Philippine navy in the waters around the island from January to March in 1998 and 51 fishermen on board were detained for around six months. In May 1999, a Chinese fishing boat was rammed by a Philippine warship and sunk, according to the ministry.

From 2000 to 2011, at least 32 fishing ships, with 439 fishermen on board, were chased, robbed or detained by the Philippine navy. The latest event occurred in April. Xu Detan, captain of one of the 12 fishing ships harassed, has not recovered from the shocking encounter with the Philippine navy even three weeks after returning home.

On April 10, nine Philippine soldiers, on a inflatable craft, boarded Xu's ship with seven of them carrying rifles. "They turned off the radio and satellite positioning system on my ship, searched the whole ship and took pictures while the 16 members of the crew, including me, were standing on the deck under the hot sun for four hours." Two Chinese Marine Surveillance ships conducting routine patrols in the area later came to the fishermen's rescue and helped Xu and his colleagues return home safely.

Until 1997, the Philippines never disputed China's jurisdiction and development of the island. But recently the Philippines has played tricks and triggered disturbances.

Redrawing world map?

The Philippines says it is the nearest country to Huangyan Island, so it claims sovereighty based on this premise.

"This theory based on geographic distance for territorial sovereignty has absolutely no basis in international law and judicial practice," according to Zhang Haiwen, deputy director of China Institute for Marine Affairs under the State Oceanic Administration.

Zhang said that many countries have territories that are far away from their mainland and much closer to other countries. "For example, the British Channel Islands are less than 12 nautical miles off the French coastline at their closest proximity. Some French territorial islands stretch across the Atlantic, lying close to the Canadian coastline in north America and even in the Pacific. But none of these islands has territorial disputes due to geographic distance. The world map would be redrawn if the Philippines' theory was upheld."

The Philippines claims that Huangyan Island is within the country's 200-nautical miles-wide Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and says its claim is in line with the United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Liu Feng, a researcher with National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said that the UNCLOS does not contain articles to change a country's land territory, nor does it have the authority to allow a country to take another country's territory by the right of the EEZ and the continental shelf.

The Philippines claims that the United States controlled Huangyan Island, thus it has inherited the island's sovereignty and jurisdiction from the US military.

"US forces in the Philippines used Huangyan Island as a shooting range, but the US has never claimed sovereignty over the island. How could the Philippines inherit it?" said Zhang Haiwen.

"The Philippine rhetoric is untenable in terms of international law," said Liu Feng. "So the Philippines wants to stir things up by sending warships to harass Chinese fishermen in Huangyan Island waters and escalate tensions."

China has remained restrained and is not in favor of armed conflict. In the short run, besides diplomatic efforts, China's major strategy is to dispatch surveillance and fishery administration ships.

"Such a practice not only reflects that China considers the Huangyan Island issue as an internal affair and conveys China's unwavering attitude toward territory and sovereignty problems, but also shows its wish not to resort to force of arms to resolve the issue," said Tong Xiaoling, China's ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

As for the attempt of the Philippines to submit the Huangyan Island issue to the "international court," Zhang Haiwen called the move a trick. It is legally groundless to bring it to the so-called "international court," Zhang said.

Actually, China submitted a formal statement to the United Nations in 2006 in line with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The declaration clarifies that China will not accept binding international arbitration concerning significant disputes involving territory, sovereignty and maritime demarcation. In other words, without China and other related parties reaching consensus, such disputes should not be submitted to international judicial bodies, he said.

It has been a month since April 10 when the Philippines stirred up the territorial dispute. Qu Xing, director of the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), said how the Huangyan Island dispute will develop depends on the Philippines.

Now, the Philippine side continues to miscalculate the situation and insists on strategic negotiations, making it hard to forecast an optimistic short-term outlook, said Dong Manyuan, the CIIS vice-director. Dong said: "the Philippine side's miscalculation stems from its wrong perception of the possible strategic effects of the United States' strategy to return to Asia, of how much support it will get from the Mutual Defense Treaty with the US, of China's resolve to safeguard its territorial integrity, and whether other Southeast Asian countries that claim sovereignty over parts of the South China Sea will act with it."

Dong said China has maintained its position of seeking diplomatic solutions, asking the Philippine side to correct its wrong position. However, the Philippine side will meet serious consequences if it is bent on challenging China's sovereignty bottom line, he said.