How a Rusty WWII Ship Became a Symbol of Indo-Pacific Power Wrestling

A rusty World War II ship in the South China Sea has become a symbol of defiance in the face of Chinese aggression.

Twenty-five years ago, the Philippines strategically grounded its naval vessel BRP Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the Spratly Islands, composed of over 100 small islands and reefs.

The shoal lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, an area within 200 nautical miles of a nation’s coastal line that gives the country rights to use natural resources in the water. It lies within a region of the South China Sea that’s disputed between China, the Philippines, and other nations.

The U.S.-built BRP Sierra Madre is not just a ship but a concrete marker of the country’s territorial claim in disputed waterways that, in recent years, has seen rising acts of aggression and harassment by Chinese vessels.

Although in a much-deteriorated state, the ship still serves the same purpose today.

Related Stories

In its talks with Manila in July, Beijing demanded the BRP Sierra Madre be towed away. An unoccupied Second Thomas Shoal would allow a takeover by the Chinese regime, just like the Scarborough Shaol, another feature within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone that Beijing seized more than a decade ago.

“I think that the Philippines felt fooled by China. We gave a lot, but then we didn’t get anything in return, not as much as we expected,” Andrea Chloe Wong, a non-resident fellow at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs, a think tank in New Zealand, told The Epoch Times.

“He [Marcos] doesn’t want to make the same mistake again,” said Wong, who is based in the Philippines.

China claims the Second Thomas Shoal and the rest of the Spratly Islands through its “nine-dash line,” a u-shaped line that circles most of the South China Sea and overlaps with the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Although the nine-dash line was rejected by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the 2016 tribunal decision, Beijing has insisted on it and added a 10^th dash by circling Taiwan in its new China map released last September.

Throughout the years, the Chinese Coast Guard has patrolled the u-shaped route by entering other nations’ waters determined by international laws.

According to Rommel Jude Ong, former vice commander of the Philippines Navy, Beijing wants to control the South China Sea because it needs to use the waterways as a base to project its power and achieve its global maritime ambitions.

In addition, the South China Sea is a resource-rich area with a critical shipping route.

After repeatedly losing properties in the Spratly Islands to China—Mischief Reef in 1995 and Scarborough Shoal in 2012, “the Second Thomas Shoal is very sacred to the Philippine government,” said Wong.

Ong, currently a professor at the Philippines’ Ateneo School of Government, said the BRP Sierra Madre had become a symbol of the Philippines’ “willingness to fight or willingness to resist” China.

“It is also a symbol that we need to do a lot more work on strategy and capacity building as well, and that ship symbolizes a lot of gaps that we need to fill up over time,” he told The Epoch Times, commenting on the vessel’s aged condition.

He said his country needs to increase its navy ships and learn when to pull in the alliances when dealing with China. In his view, the Philippines needs to prove its agency and know that allies and partners may not come to the rescue if their security priorities don’t overlap with the Philippines’.

Michael Shoebridge, founder and director of the think tank Strategic Analysis Australia, believes that many regional players are pursuing security independence with support from allies and partners.

“You need to invest in your own defense and security, so you can’t free-ride on the Americans. And if you’ve got other powerful partners like Japan, Australia, or South Korea, and you’re investing in your own, then that is the right path,” he told The Epoch Times.

Manila engaged in diplomatic talks with Beijing and reached an agreement on July 21 on resupply missions at the Second Thomas Shoal. However, the two nations disputed the agreed terms immediately afterward.

On July 19, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the United States would “do what is necessary with the Philippines” to support reprovisioning the ship, which he reaffirmed as covered by the U.S.-Philippine mutual defense treaty.

Yet much has changed in the past 10 years.

China’s neighbors have grown wary of its aggressions. At the same time, the United States adopted an “open and free Indo-Pacific” concept during the Trump administration and made significant progress under President Joe Biden.

In a 2024 “State of Southeast Asia” survey conducted by Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, nearly half of the respondents chose “China’s economic and military power could be used to threaten my country’s interests and sovereignty” as the reason for their distrust of Beijing. The survey gathered opinions from scholars, analysts, businessmen, and governmental officials.

David Arase, a professor of international politics at Johns Hopkins University, said China made a “fundamental miscalculation” about its ability to prevail in the South China Sea with carrots and sticks.

“I don’t think China understands that these small actors, who are insignificant compared to China’s size in wealth and military power, still have remarkable resilience and agency, an ability to determine the conditions of their own existence,” he told The Epoch Times.

When the Philippines lost the Mischief Reef in 1995 and Scarborough Shoal in 2012, the United States didn’t address the issues head-on publicly.

Two years before that, the Trump administration introduced the “free and open Indo-Pacific” concept.

According to Chen Yu-cheng, a senior research fellow at the Center for Contemporary China Studies at the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan, the United States’s role wasn’t very clearly defined when the strategy was initially crafted. In his view, the Biden administration extended its predecessors’ efforts by developing more security, diplomatic, and economic partnerships that boosted regional players’ confidence in pushing back on China.

Arase gives the Biden White House “a lot of credit” because they understand that “the free and open Indo-Pacific is really about diplomacy and relationships. It’s not really about trying to scare, bully, or overpower others.

“It’s more about persuading other countries that we’re all better off if we continue to live under this rules-based order.”

He said the United States got the message across and won partners who don’t necessarily love America but understand its role in maintaining order so small countries’ rights are respected.

Shoebridge with Strategic Analysis Australia said if the BRP Sierra Madre became uninhabitable, it would still be a win for Beijing. Therefore, he suggests replacing the vessel with a more solid structure, such as an oil and gas exploration platform that can be re-supplied via helicopters.

“It would be a tangible manifestation of the free and open Indo-Pacific in the face of Chinese aggression,” he said.