From the Firehose: Activity at Disputed Scarborough Shoal in South China Sea
The Hague in the Netherlands. The South China Sea. The Philippine Foreign Ministry. And the head of U.S. naval operations, Admiral John Richardson. How are all these organizations, places, and people connected? Good question. Here is what we at Planet Labs know.
Today, Reuters released comments from Admiral John Richardson about developments in the South China Sea. From Reuters:
Richardson said the U.S. military had seen Chinese activity around Scarborough Shoal in the northern part of the Spratly archipelago, about 125 miles (200 km) west of the Philippine base of Subic Bay.
“I think we see some surface ship activity and those sorts of things, survey type of activity, going on. That’s an area of concern … a next possible area of reclamation,” he said.
Reading through Reuters’ story we understand the complexity of this geopolitical event: ownership of Scarborough Shoal has been under dispute between China and the Philippines for some time ($5 trillion in global trade passes through the region every year), and a ruling by the court of arbitration in The Hague is expected soon.
Planet’s satellites have captured activity in the South China Sea before.
After reading the Admiral’s comments, we typed a search into our online platform and found beautiful, cloudless imagery of Scarborough Shoal from last week, March 12, 2016.
We looked closely and found what looks like ships on the southwestern side of the island.
Who do the ships belong to and what are they doing there? We can’t say for sure, but we’ll be monitoring the headlines closely for developments in this situation and have set an alert in our platform to monitor the island.
Geopolitical events take place every day and are ever-evolving. A daily snapshot of the planet helps all actors monitor developments and catalogue progressions, which increases the amount of factual information enabling people to make better decisions. As Planet’s satellites increase in number, we will soon see truth on the ground like never before.
See more of our imagery and stories at Planet.com. If you’re a developer, access our platform for free here: https://www.planet.com/open-california/.
