EDITORIAL: Water Cannons, Cyanide and Silence — China Torments Philippine Fishermen with Impunity

Introduction: An Ordinary Violence the World Has Learned to Ignore

Fishermen under the cannons of a superpower

Somewhere in the South China Sea, a few nautical miles from a rock that an international tribunal confirmed belongs to the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, Philippine fishermen try to earn their living. They fish as their fathers did, as their grandfathers did. And for more than a decade, regularly, coast guards from a superpower of 1.4 billion people fire on them with water cannons. Injure them. Sink their boats. Seize their catches. And sometimes, according to recent accusations, poison the fish with cyanide.

In December 2025, during a documented incident near Sabina Shoal, three fishermen were injured and two boats damaged by water cannons from the Chinese Coast Guard. In April 2026, the Philippines accused China of having used cyanide to poison fish near Second Thomas Shoal. These are not isolated incidents. It is a policy. A systematic, documented, deliberate policy — one that continues because the international community has decided it is not truly scandalous.

Silence as passive complicity

My editorial today is not a report. It is a position. I am convinced that the world's collective silence in the face of what China is doing in the South China Sea constitutes a form of passive complicity. Not because we approve of what is happening. But because our incapacity to name it clearly, to condemn it firmly, and to draw concrete consequences from it tells Beijing it can continue. And Beijing continues.

This is not a complex dossier where wrongs are shared. An international tribunal — the Permanent Court of Arbitration — rendered a clear decision in 2016: China has no sovereign rights over Scarborough Shoal, Second Thomas Shoal, or over most of the reefs it controls in the South China Sea. China ignores this decision. Ten years later. And Philippine fishermen continue to be hosed with water cannons by the coast guards of the power that denies the legitimacy of the tribunal that condemned it.

The Chronology of a Methodical Aggression Since 2012

2012: the seizure of Scarborough Shoal

Everything begins in 2012. China seizes effective control of Scarborough Shoal — a coral reef located only 230 kilometers from the Philippine coast, well within Manila's exclusive economic zone. It does so progressively, through a policy known as "gray zone" tactics: fishing boats, then coast guard vessels, then a military presence that solidifies progressively. No spectacular invasion. No direct military engagement. An occupation by attrition and continuous presence.

Since 2012, Philippine fishermen have been systematically driven out of Scarborough Shoal. A reef where they had fished for generations. Studies have documented the economic importance of this single reef: in 2023, during a brief period when access was temporarily restored for Philippine fishermen, they caught 164 tonnes of fish in a single day. This figure says everything about what China has stolen from Philippine coastal communities since 2012: decades of subsistence, generations of fishing income, a natural resource of primary necessity for coastal communities.

The progressive escalation of the intimidation arsenal

The palette of Chinese intimidation tools has widened and hardened over the years. The first documented incidents involved floating barriers blocking access to fishing zones. Then came lasers — military lasers aimed at the eyes of Philippine sailors, causing temporary vision damage. Then water cannons, used repeatedly since 2023, capable of seriously injuring and sinking small vessels. Then knives used to cut ropes and seize equipment from Philippine fishermen.

And now, if the Philippines' April 2026 accusations are substantiated, cyanide. The use of cyanide to kill fish in waters claimed by the Philippines would be an escalation of a different gravity — not only violence against fishermen, but a deliberate destruction of fish stocks in contested waters. A scorched-earth logic applied to the ocean. This is no longer intimidation. If confirmed, it is an environmental crime.

The 2016 Decision: When International Law Exists and Is Not Applied

A clear verdict that Beijing refuses to accept

On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague rendered a historic decision: China has no legal basis for its claims over almost the entire South China Sea. The "nine-dash line" — the maritime boundary claimed by Beijing encompassing approximately 90% of this sea — has no foundation in international law of the sea. The tribunal was explicit: the Philippines have the sovereign right to exploit resources in their exclusive economic zone, including at Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal.

China's response was immediate and unambiguous: it refuses to recognize the decision. It called it "null and void." It has never modified its behavior in consequence. Ten years after this decision, the facts on the ground are exactly as if the tribunal had never rendered its verdict. Beijing still controls Scarborough Shoal. Its coast guards still fire water cannons at Philippine fishermen. And the world watches.

What this refusal says about the world order

I want to pause on what China's refusal to apply the 2016 decision concretely means. The international system rests on a fundamental principle: states agree to submit their disputes to third-party resolution mechanisms, and respect their decisions even when those decisions go against them. This is the basis of international law. This is what distinguishes the rules-based international order from the law of the strongest.

When China sovereignly ignores an international decision, it is not merely saying it disagrees. It is saying that the rules do not apply to it. It is saying that its economic and military power grants it the right to ignore the mechanisms that weaker states are required to respect. This is a position that, if normalized, undermines the foundations of the international order — the same order that protects smaller states from the arbitrary will of the more powerful. The Philippines today. Who tomorrow?

The Philippine Strategy: Film, Publish, Resist Without Retreating

Transparency as a diplomatic weapon

Facing a power with infinitely superior military means, the Philippines under President Marcos Jr. developed an original and remarkably effective strategy: film everything, publish immediately. Every incident at sea is documented by on-board cameras. Images of water cannons, lasers, and equipment seizures are published without delay on social media and transmitted to international media. The objective: make every Chinese aggression visible, international, indisputable.

This strategy has several effects. It prevents China from denying what is happening — the images are there, documented, time-stamped. It mobilizes international public opinion in favor of the Philippines — it is difficult not to take the side of fishermen on a small boat facing the water cannons of a coast guard vessel of several thousand tonnes. And it creates diplomatic pressure on the Philippines' allies — notably the United States, Japan, and the European Union — to take public positions.

The defensive alliances being built

In January 2026, the Philippines and Japan concluded an enhanced security agreement, accompanied by $6 million in American assistance to equip the Philippine coast guard. This is a modest sum compared to the military budgets of the players involved — but it is symbolically significant. Japan, which has its own territorial disputes with China in the East China Sea, has a direct interest in seeing the Philippines maintain its resistance to Beijing's pressures. A Philippines that yields is a dangerous precedent for Tokyo.

The United States, under the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines, has reaffirmed that this treaty applies to Philippine armed forces, including coast guards, in the South China Sea. This was a formulation that was not explicit before 2023 — it was clarified under pressure from repeated incidents. Concretely: if Philippine personnel were killed in an incident with Chinese forces, the United States would theoretically be obliged to intervene. This deterrence clause is real. But history also says that deterrence has limits when economic interests weigh heavily.

The Floating Platform of June 2026: A Further Escalation

A "scientific" installation armed with communication antennas

In June 2026, the Washington Times documented the appearance of a new floating platform by China near Scarborough Shoal. Approximate dimensions: about 300 square feet. Visible equipment: communication antennas. Official justification from Beijing: scientific research. Reality as perceived by the Philippines and their allies: a new step in the creation of permanent control infrastructure over waters that China has no legal right to control.

This platform fits the classic pattern of Chinese gray zone strategy. First a light presence, presented as harmless. Then a permanence that settles in. Then additional installations. We have seen this pattern at large scale with the construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea — coral reefs transformed into full military bases with runways and missile systems. The floating platform of June 2026 may be the beginning of a new cycle of the same process.

The Philippine response: protest, transparency, continuity

The Philippines formally protested against this installation. They published photos and detailed information. The Marcos Jr. government summoned the Chinese ambassador. These measures are real but insufficient on their own. China responded with its habitual formulations: incontestable sovereignty, legitimate activities, unacceptable foreign interference. The same script repeated for ten years.

What is different in 2026 is the international attention brought to these developments. The Philippine transparency strategy has progressively built a global audience for these incidents. Where similar reports five years ago passed unnoticed on the inside pages of newspapers, they now make the front pages of outlets like the Washington Times, the Guardian, Reuters. The normalization of Chinese harassment is being checked, partially, by Philippine persistence in making it visible.

The Travel Ban Against the Philippine Minister: An Unprecedented Personal Threat

Targeting Minister Teodoro and his family

In June 2026, China crossed an additional line: it imposed a travel ban on Philippine Defense Minister Gilbert Teodoro and his family. This measure is personal, targeted, and designed to send a message of direct intimidation to a government official who had been particularly vocal in denouncing Chinese conduct at sea.

This escalation toward the minister's private person — including family members who exercise no political function — marks a troubling development. We are no longer talking only about harassing anonymous fishermen at sea. We are talking about personally and explicitly targeting political decision-makers and their relatives. This is an attempt to make those who resist pay a sufficiently high personal cost to deter them from continuing to resist.

The deterrent effect on regional decision-makers

The message of this sanction is not only destined for Teodoro. It is destined for all political decision-makers in the region who might be tempted to harden their position against China. If being too vocal about Chinese violations in the South China Sea means having one's passport invalidated for China and Hong Kong, and exposing one's family to the same, some will choose caution over courage. That is precisely the intended effect.

International human rights organizations have condemned this measure. The United States and the European Union have expressed concern. But verbally condemning a travel ban is a symbolic response without practical consequence. If the international community truly wants to discourage this type of personal intimidation tactic, it must respond with reciprocal measures: targeted sanctions on the Chinese officials who make these decisions. Not declarations. Acts.

The Philippine Fishing Economy: What China Has Really Stolen

164 tonnes in one day: the symbol of a denied abundance

The figure deserves a pause: during a brief period in 2023 when access to Scarborough Shoal had been temporarily restored for Philippine fishermen, they caught 164 tonnes of fish in a single day. This is not an anecdote. It is the concrete measure of what China has subtracted from Philippine coastal communities since 2012. Multiply this potential by the fishing days lost over twelve years, and you begin to measure the scale of the economic harm.

Philippine fishermen who depend on these zones are not abstract interests in a geopolitical debate. They are concrete families who have seen their principal source of income cut by the decision of a foreign power whose claims have been judged illegal by an international tribunal. The law belongs to them. The resources belong to them. And yet, for twelve years, they cannot access these resources without risking water cannons, lasers, or worse.

The impact on coastal communities and food security

Fishing represents an essential economic pillar for several Philippine provinces — notably in the Zambales region, the closest to Scarborough Shoal. Thousands of families depend directly or indirectly on this industry. The access restriction imposed by China since 2012 has forced fishermen to seek alternative zones, often less productive, or to go into debt to buy additional fuel to reach more distant zones.

Food security is also at stake. The Philippines is a country of 115 million inhabitants where fish constitutes a major protein source for modest-income populations. When China subtracts productive fishing zones from the Philippine economy, it does not only affect incomes — it affects the availability and price of a basic food necessity for millions of people. This concrete human dimension is too rarely mentioned in geopolitical analyses that prefer maritime law maps to fishing tables.

The International Response: Between Verbal Condemnations and Practical Inaction

Allies who condemn but do not sanction

The United States, Japan, Australia, the European Union, and other democracies regularly condemn Chinese actions in the South China Sea. These condemnations are real, public, sometimes firm in their formulations. But they remain almost exclusively verbal. No targeted economic measures have been taken against the Chinese entities responsible for incidents at sea. No personal sanctions have been imposed on the officers of the Chinese Coast Guard who command the harassment operations.

The reason is simple and frankly cynical: economic dependence on China. Bilateral trade between the European Union and China amounts to hundreds of billions of euros. American-Chinese trade, despite Trump's tariffs, remains colossal. Companies that manufacture in China, supply chains that pass through Chinese ports, sovereign debts held by investment funds with participations in China: all of this creates interests that weigh heavily against the rights of Philippine fishermen on a reef in the South China Sea.

ASEAN paralyzed by its internal divisions

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is structurally incapable of acting in a unified way against China on this issue. Members like Cambodia and Laos — whose governments are economically and politically heavily dependent on Beijing — systematically block any formulation of joint communiqués that would explicitly condemn Chinese actions. ASEAN operates by consensus, and consensus is impossible when two of its members are de facto spokespersons for the Chinese position within the organization.

This paralysis of ASEAN essentially leaves the Philippines alone against China in regional mechanisms. Manila has sought and found bilateral support — the United States, Japan, Australia — but the absence of a unified regional voice significantly weakens the Philippine position. China masterfully exploits these divisions: it can always point to the ASEAN members who do not support the Philippines to deny the idea of a regional consensus against its practices.

Why the South China Sea Is Crucial for the West

$3.5 trillion in annual maritime trade

The South China Sea is not a distant regional concern. It is at the heart of the global economy. Approximately $3.5 trillion in goods transit through these waters every year — representing about a third of global maritime trade. Oil exports from the Middle East to Asia. Containers of Asian manufactured products to Europe and America. Raw materials from Australia and South Africa to East Asian factories. All these routes pass through the South China Sea.

If China manages to establish effective navigation control over these waters — not only fishing, but commercial transit — it will possess an economic lever of extraordinary power over all global economies. A China capable of threatening or disrupting maritime traffic in the South China Sea is a China capable of exerting economic pressure on countries that have no border with it and that might think they have nothing to fear from its territorial claims. This is not a theoretical hypothesis. It is the geopolitical logic of what Beijing has been methodically building since 2012.

Freedom of navigation: a principle the West must actively defend

The United States maintains a freedom of navigation (FON operations) policy in the South China Sea — regular passages of American military vessels in areas claimed by China to assert that these waters are international. These operations are important symbolically and legally. But they do not protect Philippine fishermen. They do not apply the 2016 decision. They have not prevented the construction of artificial islands. They are not a complete policy — they are a regular signal that the United States follows closely.

A complete policy would require economic components: targeted sanctions against the Chinese Coast Guard entities involved in documented incidents. Compensation mechanisms for damages suffered by Philippine fishermen. Substantial financial and material support for the Philippines' maritime surveillance capabilities. And a willingness to explicitly link trade relations with China to its respect for international maritime law. None of these elements currently exists fully.

The Editorial Posture: Why China Must Be Named Clearly

Against "both sides are wrong" on this specific issue

I want to be explicit about my editorial position, because I believe it is necessary on this precise issue. In many international conflicts, wrongs are shared, narratives contradictory, truths multiple. In the case of the South China Sea and the actions of the Chinese Coast Guard against Philippine fishermen, this is not the case. The 2016 decision is clear. The documentation of incidents is abundant. The victims are identified. The aggressor is identified.

Practicing false balance on this issue — presenting the Chinese and Philippine positions as equally legitimate — would be a distortion of documented reality. China is not wrong in one opinion among others. It violates an established right recognized by a tribunal it accepted when it signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It harasses civilian fishermen with military means. It creates permanent installations in international waters without legal right to do so. Naming this clearly is not bias. It is factual precision.

What our silence normalizes for tomorrow

Every incident in the South China Sea that passes without substantial international response is a lesson learned by all the actors who are watching. China learns that the method works. Other states that harbor territorial ambitions — in other regions of the world — learn that sufficient economic power protects from any real consequence. And small states that defend legal rights against more powerful neighbors learn that the international community does not have the backbone to support them concretely when it costs something.

This is not abstract. The decisions the international community makes — or does not make — today on the South China Sea shape the risk calculations of all actors in all future conflicts. If Beijing can torment Philippine fishermen with water cannons with impunity, if it can ignore an international decision for ten years without consequence, then every treaty, every tribunal, every international norm becomes a little less binding for everyone. That is the real issue. And that is why I refuse to treat this subject as an ordinary territorial conflict.

What the West Must Do Differently: Concrete Proposals

Targeted sanctions on those responsible for documented incidents

The first concrete measure the West should take is simple: personal targeted sanctions on senior officers of the Chinese Coast Guard who command operations in disputed zones. The model exists — Magnitsky sanctions allow travel bans and asset freezes to be imposed on foreign officials who violate fundamental rights. Officers who order the use of water cannons against civilians, or the use of cyanide to poison fishing zones, clearly fall into this category.

These sanctions would be symbolically powerful and practically measured. They would not affect bilateral trade with China — they would target specific individuals for specific documented acts. They would create a personal cost for decision-makers who choose the most aggressive tactics. And they would send a clear signal that the international community does not accept the normalization of violence against civilians, even dressed up as maritime surveillance operations.

An international compensation fund for victim fishermen

The second measure: create an international compensation fund for Philippine fishermen and those of any other country who have suffered documented damages caused by state forces in violation of international decisions. This fund would not replace China's responsibility — it would make that responsibility economically visible. It would mean that victims are not abandoned to their fate while diplomacy does its work over decades.

These proposals are not magic solutions. They will not force China to accept the 2016 decision tomorrow morning. But they are concrete, proportionate actions that change the cost-benefit calculation of Chinese aggressiveness at sea. What we are currently doing — verbally condemning, militarily monitoring, and changing nothing economically — does not change this calculation. And if nothing changes in the calculation, nothing will change in the behaviors. This is an obvious truth we seem to resist admitting.

The China We Choose to See and the One That Actually Exists

Two contradictory images of the same power

The China we want to see, in the West, is the one of investments, growth, consumer markets, the indispensable trading partner. This is a real image — China is indeed all these things. But the China that also simultaneously exists is the one that builds artificial islands on reefs belonging to other countries, that fires water cannons on civilian fishermen, that imposes personal sanctions on foreign ministers for their legitimate political statements, and that has refused to apply an international tribunal's decisions for ten years.

These two Chinas are not contradictory. They are two facets of the same state. And our collective analytical error — in the West — is to believe that we can treat the economic China and the geopolitical China separately. That we can trade with the first while ignoring the behaviors of the second. Ten years of incidents in the South China Sea should have taught us that these two dimensions are inseparable. The financing China draws from its economic relations with the West also finances its military capabilities and its policy of maritime expansion.

The world we want to leave to our children

I end this editorial with a simple question: in what world do we want our children to live? A world where international tribunal decisions apply to all states, or a world where they apply to those who lack the means to ignore them? A world where civilian fishermen can exercise their legal rights without being doused with water cannons, or a world where force prevails over law as long as it is not confronted with superior force?

These questions are not rhetorical. They identify concrete political choices that democracies must make, now, on the South China Sea issue. We do not need a war. We do not need a total trade embargo. We need the political will to use the available tools — targeted sanctions, concrete support for the Philippines, conditionality in trade relations — to signal to Beijing that asymmetric violence against civilians has a cost. This signal does not exist today. It is time to send it.

The Law of the Sea: UNCLOS and the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone

What the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea guarantees

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which entered into force in 1994 and has been ratified by more than 160 states, establishes a clear framework for maritime rights. Each coastal state has an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extending up to 200 nautical miles from its coasts, in which it exercises sovereign rights over the exploitation of natural resources — fishing, oil, gas. These rights are exclusive: no other state can exploit these resources without the consent of the coastal state.

The Philippines ratified UNCLOS in 1984. China ratified UNCLOS in 1996. Both countries are therefore bound by the same treaty. And this treaty clearly states that Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal lie within the Philippines' EEZ, not China's EEZ. When the Permanent Court of Arbitration rendered its decision in 2016, it did not invent a new right. It simply applied UNCLOS — a treaty that Beijing freely signed. China is not only violating the tribunal's decision. It is violating the international treaty it itself ratified.

The nine-dash line: a claim without legal basis

The nine-dash line — the maritime boundary that China unilaterally claims in the South China Sea — has no basis in UNCLOS, no basis in customary international law, and no basis in any recognized bilateral treaty. It is based on Chinese historical maps dating from the pre-1949 nationalist period — maps that were never accepted by China's neighbors and were rejected by the international tribunal in 2016.

This claim covers approximately 90% of the South China Sea, encroaching on the EEZs of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. If China fully applied this claim, it would deprive these five countries of a substantial part of their legal exclusive economic zones. This is the real project behind the water cannons, the lasers, and the floating barriers. Not simply harassing fishermen. Building a territorial and maritime fait accompli that the world will eventually accept by default.

Chinese Investments in ASEAN: Diplomacy by Checkbook

How Beijing divides ASEAN from within

China's ASEAN division strategy operates primarily through massive investments in economically most vulnerable member countries. Cambodia has received billions of dollars in Chinese infrastructure investments — roads, ports, government buildings — since the 2000s. These investments have created a structural economic dependence that translates directly into pro-Chinese political positions in regional forums.

Laos is even more dependent: debt to China represents a significant portion of its total external debt. The construction of the Laos-China railway, Chinese credit-financed, has further deepened this dependence. The result is predictable: when ASEAN must vote on statements regarding the South China Sea, Cambodia and Laos block any formulation that could embarrass Beijing. An organization of ten members paralyzed by two of them — this is the effectiveness of diplomacy by checkbook.

What the West should learn from the Chinese strategy

I do not advocate that the West copy the Chinese method — buying political positions through loans with implicit political conditionalities. But I advocate that the West understand what it is fighting against. China uses economic investment as a geopolitical instrument, deliberately, systematically, over the long term. This strategy is documented. It is visible. It produces concrete results — such as ASEAN's paralysis on the South China Sea question.

The Western response to this strategy requires a much more proactive economic engagement in ASEAN countries. The American Build Back Better World initiative, the European Global Gateway partnership, Japanese investments in Southeast Asia — these instruments exist, but they are not deployed with the coherence and strategic persistence of China. If the West wants to preserve ASEAN's unity against Chinese pressure, it must offer attractive investment alternatives. Not out of idealism. Out of properly understood strategic interest.

Conclusion: The Sea the World Dares Not Defend

One last water cannon before the world wakes up

A Philippine fisherman somewhere in the South China Sea casts his nets tonight. He knows that Chinese coast guards are patrolling a few miles away. He knows that if he gets too close to Scarborough Shoal, the water cannons may greet him again. He fishes anyway, because his family needs to eat. He resists with his means — a net, a boat, a camera to document what happens to him.

This ordinary resistance, this persistence of daily life in the face of the arbitrary will of a superpower, is one of the most authentic forms of courage I know. These fishermen are not asking the West to fight for them. They are asking that the right a tribunal recognized in their favor be respected. That the international community have the courage to back with acts what it affirms with words. This is a reasonable request. And so far, the collective response is not equal to it.

My final conviction on this issue

I leave this editorial with a conviction I fully assume: Chinese violence in the South China Sea against Philippine fishermen is one of the clearest and best-documented examples of what a power can do when it calculates that the rules do not apply to it. The international response to this situation is a test of our real — not rhetorical — commitment to a rules-based order. So far, we are failing this test. It is not too late to pass it. But every day that passes without a concrete response makes this test a little harder to pass.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Assumed editorial positioning

This editorial takes an explicit and assumed position: China's actions in the South China Sea constitute a documented violation of international maritime law and the rights of Philippine fishermen. This position is based on verifiable facts — the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration decision, incidents documented by multiple sources — and on clear editorial values: defense of international law, protection of civil rights, refusal to normalize violence against civilians.

An editorial is not a neutral report. It expresses a point of view. This text does so explicitly and claims it. Readers who wish to hear Beijing's official position on these matters can consult the communiqués of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which defends its claims with consistency and coherence — even if this defense is rejected by international law.

Sources and verifications

All factual incidents cited in this editorial — the December 2025 and April 2026 incidents, the 164 tonnes of fish, the Japan-Philippines agreement of January 2026, the sanction against Teodoro, the floating platform of June 2026 — are based on verifiable journalistic sources cited in the Sources section. No fact has been invented or inferred without documentary basis. The trade figures ($3.5 trillion) are widely cited estimates in the economic literature on the South China Sea.

Any factual error reported will be corrected with a correction notice. Editorial positions, which fall within the register of opinion, will only be revised if new substantive facts modify the analysis — not on the basis of ideological disagreement.

Sources

Primary sources

Washington Times — Tensions rise at disputed South China Sea shoal — June 25, 2026

Al Jazeera — Documentation of military posts in contested zones — June 2026

The Guardian — Coverage of South China Sea tensions and territorial disputes — June 2026

Secondary sources

19FortyFive — China's Escalating Tactics at Scarborough Shoal — June 2026

Foreign Policy — Philippine Fishermen vs China's Water Cannons: A Decade of Harassment — June 2026

Reuters — Philippines-China South China Sea: documented incidents 2025-2026 — June 2026

Military Times — Japan-Philippines defense pact and US security assistance — January 2026