A naval chief described purposefully wrecking a ship to mess with China

• A Philippines naval chief described an audacious anti-China mission from 1999.
• Vice Adm. Eduardo Santos intentionally grounded a ship to create an obstacle in the South China Sea.

Around 25 years ago, a Filipino naval chief ran his own ship aground.

But decades later, the officer disclosed that the move was a plot to disrupt China, not an accidental calamity.

The rusting WWII-era vessel, BRP Sierra Madre, is still there in the South China Sea. Though it can't sail, it serves as a vital outpost for the Philippine military in the Second Thomas Shoal, which both China and the Philippines claim for themselves.

The ship has proved an obstacle for China, which has aggressively expanded its presence in the disputed sea despite a Hague tribunal ruling against their territorial claims in 2016.

Speaking to The Guardian, Vice Adm. Eduardo Santos recalled pretending to China's ambassador that it was an accident.

"I said, 'Well, it was supposed to be on the way [to a mission], and it ran aground'."

According to Santos, he was moving to oppose the early stages of China's "creeping invasion" of areas claimed by the Philippines.

Wrecking the ship in the previously unoccupied St. Thomas Shoal meant staving off potential Chinese occupation a bit longer, he said.

The South China Sea is a heavily trafficked waterway that is rich in resources and the subject of one of the world's most contentious territorial disputes.

The ocean doesn't belong to any country, outside of narrow strips of territorial waters.

But China has long sought to secure a claim on the South China Sea, building and developing small spits of land to expand its influence.

China claims a vast swathe of the sea as its own now — a claim that its neighbors and Western nations like the US say is baseless.

Tensions between China and the Philippines over the sea, with confrontations on the water becoming more serious.

Earlier this month, a Chinese coastguard ship — the largest in the world — dropped anchor in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

In June, the Chinese coastguard boarded a Filpino ship, with video showing the sailors being threatened with axes and other "bladed and pointed" weapons.

An expert told BI at the time that China was aiming to "change the status quo by force," using aggressive but non-lethal measures meant to gradually "exhaust" its neighbors.

Other acts of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea this year have included alleged cyanide poisoning of the contested waters and seemingly intentionally colliding with a Philippine ship while pummeling it with a water cannon.