The U.S. State Department has accused China of launching a new operation aimed at altering the balance in the Indo-Pacific through the maneuvers carried out this week in the disputed shoal of Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Reef. These actions, in an enclave marked by a prolonged and tense standoff with the Philippines, add to the "dubious pretext" that Beijing has declared the area as a nature reserve under its control.
"The United States rejects China's ongoing attempts to impose its destabilizing 'national natural reserve' on Scarborough Reef and deny Filipino fishermen access to their traditional fishing grounds," criticized the State Department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, in a statement.
The ruling issued on July 12, 2016, by the Permanent Court of Arbitration regarding the South China Sea has reached this summer ten years without significantly altering the reality of the prolonged conflict between China and the Philippines, and, in practice, has only contributed to hardening the positions of the parties.
The tribunal, constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, determined that China's maritime claims over the disputed waters lack legal basis, including those that Beijing puts forward as a supposed "historical right."
China refused to intervene in the proceedings and has since maintained that the ruling is invalid, ignoring the criticisms made by the United States and the European Union.
On August 1, the Chinese military and its coast guard began a series of maneuvers in the airspace and waters near the sandbank that Beijing calls Huangyan Dao, presented as a necessary response to the actions of "certain countries" that, it argued, would be undermining regional peace and stability.
That same Saturday, Chinese authorities approved new regulations for the management of the "National Natural Reserve of Huangyan Island," created in September 2025, which prohibits unauthorized fishing, mining, coral extraction or giant clam harvesting, and other activities considered harmful, according to the official agency Xinhua.
For Washington, this regulation "is another unilateral attempt by China to use dubious environmental and legal pretexts, backed by coercion, to promote its broad territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea at the expense of its neighbors."
In its final message, the United States reiterates its support for its strategic partner in the region, the Philippines, "in the defense of a free and open Indo-Pacific."