Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio has warned that China may impose an air defense zone and control the whole South China Sea if the Philippines will not stop its plan to build a radar station in the disputed Scarborough Shoal. Carpio made the statement following reports of Beijing’s plan to install an environmental monitoring station at the shoal – a resource-rich rocky outcrop 124 nautical miles off Palawan’s northwestern coast. Several nations, led by the US, Japan and Australia feared that a Chinese-imposed ADIZ in the South China Sea – one of the world’s most vital commercial and strategic waterways – would impede freedom of navigation and overflights.

Carpio warns of China's looming encroachment on Scarborough (2017, March 19). Panay News, pp. 9, 14.