Thitu Island is another disputed spot in the Spratly Islands which China claims as its own but which the Philippines has occupied for some time. Today the Philippines announced it was building a new station on the island designed to monitor the movement of Chinese ships.

The Philippines said on Friday it was establishing a coastguard station on the largest island it holds in the disputed South China Sea, to improve monitoring of Chinese vessels asserting Beijing’s claims in the waters.

National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano made the announcement during a visit to the Philippine-held Thitu Island, which is part of the hotly contested Spratly Islands.

The coastguard station would be equipped with “advanced systems”, including radar, satellite communication, coastal cameras and vessel traffic management, Ano said.

The station has been built and is expected to be operational early next year.

Ano, who is also a retired general, had a lot more to say about China’s behavior.

“The behaviour of the Chinese coast guard, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and Chinese militias are sometimes unpredictable,” Eduardo Ano, the Philippine national security adviser, said during a visit to the island.

“They do not adhere to the international order, to the rule of law,” he told reporters on Friday.

“What they’re describing as gray-zone tactics … are pure bullying and it’s purely illegal. It’s not acceptable in the international order.”

All of this is happening as part of a new defense strategy brining the Philippines closer to the US and Australia.

Dwarfed by China’s military might, the Philippines decided this year to allow an expansion of the U.S. military presence in its local camps under a 2014 defense pact. It also recently launched joint sea and air patrols with the United States and Australia in a new deterrence strategy that puts the two allied powers on a collision course with Beijing.

Ano said the separate joint patrols involving the U.S. and Australia would continue and could expand to include other nations like Japan once a security agreement being negotiated by Tokyo and Manila was concluded.

Even as Ano’s plane headed to the island to make the announcement, China once again claimed it as its own territory.

Ano said Chinese forces transmitted a radio warning for them to stay away.

Ano said the Filipino pilots dismissed the message and in turn routinely asserted Philippine sovereign rights and control over the area.

Peering later through a mounted telescope on the island, Ano said he spotted at least 18 suspected Chinese militia ships scattered off Thitu, including a Chinese navy vessel.

Only about 200 people live full time on Thitu Island. Using it as a base to monitor China’s activities is a smart move. No doubt the US and other allies will also get access to this information. That must be angering China but short of military action there’s not much they can do about it.

The Philippines had recently begun pitching it as a tourist destination as a way to solidify their claims of control. DW published this report in July.