海角大神

This is the human face of China鈥檚 increasingly intransigent claim to most of the South China Sea: Chen Yiquan, a听ship captain听wearing a yellow T-shirt and blue cotton shorts, sitting dejectedly in a low-slung concrete jail outside this ramshackle provincial port.

Two months after being arrested on the open seas west of here for poaching endangered sea-turtles, Chinese fishing Capt. Chen and his crew are stuck in legal limbo, with no trial date in sight.听If found guilty, they could face 20-year jail sentences. For now, they are听helpless pawns in a growing territorial dispute between China and the Philippines.

Their case casts unusual light on the way the Chinese government is sometimes able to use its growing diplomatic and economic weight in Southeast Asia to shape individual and official behavior in Beijing鈥檚 favor, as it seeks to make China the 鈥渋ndispensable power鈥� in the region.听And that power does not take kindly听to judicial oversight from other countries that cross its path.听

Chen and his eight colleagues cannot be tried without a defense lawyer. No public defender can represent them without a 鈥渃ertificate of indigence鈥� from the Chinese embassy in Manila on behalf of its citizens. And the embassy has so far refused to issue that document.

Embassy spokesman Zhang Hua would not explain why. But Chinese officials have said the Philippines court has no right to try the fishermen since they were detained in what Beijing considers to be Chinese territorial waters, 60 miles off the Philippines coast and some 650 miles from the nearest Chinese land.

The case is 鈥渋llegal and invalid,鈥� Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on May 9, the day the men were first questioned by a prosecutor. 鈥淐hina has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and the adjacent waters including the Banyue reef,鈥� she added, using the Chinese names for the Spratly Islands and Half Moon Shoal, where the fishermen were captured.

Impeded trial听

And that leaves Capt. Chen washed up on a foreign shore with no place to go. 鈥淭he embassy does not want to be involved in the judicial process,鈥� says Chen, speaking at the jail. 鈥淭hey have not helped us at all.鈥�

The fishermen need a听Chinese-speaking听interpreter before a trial can start. But when Chinese consul Duan Qiang 鈥渢old the fishermen not to cooperate with us,鈥� says provincial prosecutor Allen Rodriguez, it became clear that Beijing was seeking to impede the case.

Since then, all the ethnic Chinese Filipinos in Puerto Princesa who speak Mandarin have declined to act as court interpreters, delaying the start of court proceedings.

鈥淚 have tried the Chinese school鈥� where the teachers are mainland Chinese, 鈥渢he university, the tourist agencies and I still haven鈥檛 found anyone willing to interpret鈥� for the fishermen, says one official asked to help locate a suitable person. 鈥淚t is very difficult."

Fear of retribution听

Officials did find a Chinese-speaking local, Andrew Lim, to听interpret at the fishermen's first interrogation. But he's refusing to do so again听for fear of retribution from the Chinese government.

鈥淲e are businessmen,鈥� explains Arjennel Lim,听the interpreter's brother, whose family runs a grocery store. 鈥淲e go to China sometimes and we need visas. What if the Chinese government thought that we were with the Filipinos who are detaining their citizens?

鈥淲e want to help the Philippines government but this case is very sensitive,鈥� he adds. 鈥淲e have to think twice.鈥�

China鈥檚 refusal to allow the judicial process to run its course is new, according to Mr. Rodriguez,听the prosecutor. 鈥淭his is the first time they are stonewalling on a case,鈥� he says. 鈥淚n the past they have been very cordial and cooperative.鈥� A local Chinese Filipino businessman, Felix Lao, has been happy to act as interpreter in about two dozen cases involving Chinese fishermen, he adds.

This time Mr. Lao says he is 鈥渢oo busy鈥� to do the job and is also fearful that his Filipino neighbors and customers might resent him for coming to the assistance of the poachers.

Territorial overlaps

Beijing鈥檚 new hard line appears to match recent Chinese assertiveness elsewhere in the South China Sea, where China鈥檚 territorial claims overlap with those of its neighbors. The Vietnamese government has protested strongly against the installation of a Chinese oil-drilling rig in waters it says belong to Hanoi.

Last week China said it arrested six Vietnamese fishermen that were in Chinese territorial waters off Hainan Island. Vietnam said that the arrest on July 3 occurred in disputed waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, south of Hainan.

For the Philippines the economic stakes are high: China is its third-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade in 2013 worth $16.4 billion. And, as China's ambassador to the Philippines, Zhao Jianhua, noted last week, China's outward investment has so far largely bypassed it. That represents an opportunity 鈥� and an implicit threat, if China doesn't get its way in maritime disputes.

Half Moon Shoal

The latest flare-up in the increasingly noisy dispute between Beijing and Manila began around 9 a.m. on May 6. A team from the Philippines police elite Special Boat Unit intercepted a Chinese fishing vessel, the Qiong Qionghai 09063, just off Half Moon Shoal in the Spratlys, 60 miles west of Palawan Island.

Boarding the boat, they found 489 sea turtles 鈥� 鈥渃ritically endangered species鈥� under Philippines law 鈥� of which only 108 were still alive according to the inventory taken by the police. The rest had been preserved in formalin and stuffed for decorative purposes, or dismembered.

Li Xianghui, a crew member released in mid-May because he was under 18, later听told the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua after his return home that the crew had bartered food and water for 鈥渄ozens鈥� of turtles from Vietnamese fishermen they met at the shoal, but听claimed听that his boat was only fishing for ornamental fish.

Illicit rendezvous

Philippines police believe that ship captain Chen was indeed buying turtles from local fishermen; they had followed a Filipino boat to its rendezvous with the Qiongqiong Hai 09063 on a tipoff and arrested five Filipinos in the operation. But no nets or other fishing gear was found on board the Chinese boat, according to the inventory, while a large drum of formalin was seized, suggesting that Chen was illegally trading in turtles.

His confiscated boat, a 60-foot wide-beamed wooden junk with a flattened prow painted red, now lies tied up to the Special Boat Unit鈥檚 wharf near Puerto Princesa; the whole turtles that were found aboard have been removed and buried, but one chest freezer in the galley is still full of turtle breast plates and flippers, while another is packed with frozen slabs of turtle meat in plastic bags.

鈥淭he Chinese fishermen were not engaged in actual fishing activities,鈥� says prosecutor Rodriguez, 鈥渂ut the law prohibits possession of rare, threatened or endangered species鈥� as well as poaching in Filipino waters.

Reckless move

China has reacted angrily to the arrest and arraignment of the nine fishermen; a threatening Xinhua commentary called it 鈥渁 premeditated plot to provoke Beijing鈥� and a 鈥渞eckless move. All parties should also be reminded that ignorance of China鈥檚 resolve to defend its sovereign land will induce consequences too severe for certain countries to bear.鈥�

In April,听the Philippines听pushed back by听signing a new defense agreement with the US, its longtime military ally. The previous month, Manila filed a case with the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, asking it to arbitrate on its maritime dispute with China. Beijing has said it would refuse to take part in any arbitration.

Meanwhile, in the Palawan provincial jail, the imprisoned Chinese fishermen 鈥渏ust sleep and eat and sit around,鈥� says Chen, as they wait for their fate to be decided.

Rodriguez says he too is patient. 鈥淭he maximum penalty for the charges they face is 20 years,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f this case hibernates, then they will be free in 20 years.鈥澨�