Avoiding the next Spratly incident

IT wasn't half as ugly and disconcerting as China's takeover of Mischief Reef in the Spratlys in 1994 or the standoff between Philippine and Chinese forces at Scarborough Shoal in 2012. But had the parties not exercised the necessary restraint, the shape of Philippine-Chinese relations today could have been much worse.

I refer to the maritime incident of November 20 near Pag-asa Island, the largest land feature occupied by the Philippines as part of its territory in the West Philippine Sea, in which a Chinese Coast Guard vessel marked BN5203 intercepted a Philippine naval rubber boat manned by personnel of the naval station Emilio Liwanag and "forcefully retrieved" a large piece of metal debris suspected to be part of a Chinese satellite rocket which the navy men had earlier recovered from Cay 1, a sandbar just off Pag-asa, and were trying to tow back to the island for inspection.