MANILA, Philippines—Due to the involvement of a Washington-blacklisted Chinese business in massive land reclamation operations in Manila Bay near its heavily fortified embassy, the United States has raised alarm. The embassy stated on Wednesday.
In meetings with Philippine government officials, the US also highlighted concerns about the possible environmental effect of the reclamations in Manila Bay, according to embassy spokesman Kanishka Gangopadhyay.
Protests have been conducted by environmental organizations against the years-long government-approved reclamations, largely by real estate corporations looking to create islands to anchor posh hotels, casinos, restaurants, and entertainment complexes in a harbor long known for filth. Others are concerned that high-rise structures constructed on reclaimed ground may obscure regular people's views of Manila Bay's renowned sunset.
“We have expressed concerns about the potential negative long-term and irreversible impacts to the environment, the resilience to natural hazards of Manila and nearby areas, and to commerce,” Mr. Gangopadhyay said in a statement.
“We are also concerned that the projects have ties to the China Communications Construction Co., which has been added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List for its role in helping the Chinese military construct and militarize artificial islands in the South China Sea,” he said.
Chinese government authorities did not respond immediately.
corporations on the list are barred from doing business with any US corporations unless they receive an almost impossible-to-obtain special license. The Chinese dictatorship considers the US sanctions to be illegitimate.
According to the state-owned China Communications Construction Co., one of its subsidiaries, China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd., is engaging in a project that includes the construction of three artificial islands in the harbor near suburban Pasay city in the capital region.
Former Philippine Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio, a vocal critic of China's increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea, said Chinese companies involved in extensive dredging and land reclamation to build Beijing's islands in waters where Manila's sovereign rights have been upheld in an international arbitration ruling should be barred from doing business in the Philippines.
“They clearly violated Philippine environmental laws,” Mr. Carpio told The Associated Press. “Worse, they helped China seize Philippine island territories and maritime zones.”
A 2016 ruling by an arbitration tribunal established in The Hague under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. On historical grounds, the Convention on the Law of the Sea rejected China's sweeping claims in the South China Sea. However, the Chinese leadership refused to participate in the arbitration, dismissed its verdict as a forgery, and continues to oppose it.
Washington does not claim the South China Sea, but has stated that freedom of navigation and overflight in the key passage—through which most of the world's trade passes—as well as the peaceful resolution of decades-long conflicts are in the national interest of the United States.
In the last decade, the Chinese dictatorship has converted at least seven disputed reefs into missile-protected island bases, alarmed the US and its allies, as well as Beijing's rival claimant nations, and heightened tensions in a region long feared as an Asian flashpoint.
Long-simmering territorial disputes have evolved into a sensitive front in the US-China competition. US warships and fighter planes have patrolled the disputed waters to test China's broad territorial claims, frequently eliciting Chinese threats for the US to quit interfering in the conflicts or face unspecified punitive measures.
