Recent satellite imagery of the contested Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea reveals the presence of a newly deployed floating barrier near the area where Philippine vessels and Chinese coast guard ships have experienced frequent confrontations. An image captured by Maxar Technologies on February 22, and examined by Reuters, displays the barrier effectively obstructing the entrance to the shoal. This location is notable as the Chinese coast guard asserted last week that they repelled a Philippine vessel engaged in “illegal intrusion” into Beijing’s waters in the vicinity of the shoal.
Philippine government and military officials said a Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessel was trying to resupply the troops stationed on a rusting World War II-era ship at Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef that Beijing is building up as part of its broader claim to almost all the sea’s water. They accused Chinese coast guard ships of pursuing and surrounding the Filipino boat, using water cannons to stop it from entering a lagoon at the shoal and sailing close to its perimeter.
The incident was the latest in a series of high-stakes confrontations between Manila and Beijing over maritime sovereignty in the Asia-Pacific’s most strategically vital waters. The Philippines was backed by a 2016 ruling by an international arbitral tribunal that invalidated China’s assertion of sovereignty over the disputed waterway. Still, Beijing has continued to pursue its claims.
In a statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said the BFAR vessel had violated China’s law by operating without obtaining its permission in waters around the shoal. He added that a crewmember on board China’s coast guard had detained the BFAR. “China is firmly opposed to such actions by the Philippines and urges the Philippine side to cease such illegal and dangerous acts immediately,” the statement said.
A Philippine official, speaking anonymously, described the incident as a “grave provocation.” The official called for China to “stop its illegal action, protect its lawful fishing rights in the relevant waters, and strictly control its provocative actions so as not to drop a stone on its foot.”
Amid the mounting tensions, AMTI has documented over 90 outposts that rival claimants have built on contested reefs and islets in the region. The company collects imagery of each outpost and other information to track their development over time. It is part of a larger project to map the waters of the South China Sea and examine how they’ve changed in recent years. The interactive maps below illustrate some of the more prominent developments in the area.