missiles, often other ships had to seek out targets for it. Lubu turned to Admiral Yin. “Sir, the surface contact is near Phu Qui Island, in the neutral zone about twenty miles north of Pearson Reef. No recent reports of any vessels or structures in the area. We have Wenshan and Xingyi in position to investigate the contact.” Yin nodded that he understood. Phu Qui Island, he knew, was a former Chinese oil-drilling site in the Spratly Islands; the well had been capped and abandoned years ago. Although Phu Qui Island disappeared underwater at high tide, it was a very large rock and coral formation and could easily be expanded and fortified-it would be an even larger island than Spratly Island itself. If Yin was tasked to pick an island to occupy and fortify, he would pick Phu Qui. So might someone else. . “Send Wenshan and Xingyi to investigate the contact, ” Yin ordered. “Rotate Manning north to take Wenshan ‘5 position.” Manning was the other Hainan-class patrol boat acting as “rover” in Yin’s patrol group. Captain Lubu acknowledged the order and relayed the instructions to his officer of the deck for transmission to the Wenshan. Yin, who had been in the People’s Liberation Army Navy practically all of his life, was proud of the instincts he’d honed during his loyal career. He trusted them. And now, somewhere deep down in his gut, those instincts told him this was going to be trouble. Granted, Phu Qui Island, and even the Spratlys themselves, seemed the most unlikely place to expect trouble. The Spratlys-called Nansha Dao, the Lonely Islands, in Chinese-were a collection of reefs, atolls, and semisubmerged islands in the middle of the South China Sea, halfway between Vietnam and the Philippines and several hundred kilometers south of China. The fifty-five major surface formations of the Spratlys were dotted with shipwrecks, attesting to the high degree of danger involved when navigating in the area. Normally, such a deathtrap as the Spratlys would be given a wide berth. Centuries ago Chinese explorers had discovered that the Nansha Dao was a treasure trove of minerals-gold, iron, copper, plus traces or indications of dozens of other metals-as well as gems and other rarities. Since the islands were right on the sea lanes between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, the “round-eyes” eventually found them, and the English named them the Spratlys after the commander of a British warship who “discovered” them in the eighteenth century. It was the British who discovered oil in the Spratlys and began tapping it. Unfortunately, the British had not yet developed the technology to successfully and economically drill for oil in the weatherbeaten islands, so the islands were abandoned for safer and more lucrative drilling sites in Indonesia and Malaysia. As time progressed, several nations-Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines-all tried to develop the islands as a major stopover port for sea traffic. But it was following World War II that the Chinese considered the Spratlys as well as everything else in the South China Sea as their territory. As oil-drilling platforms, fishing grounds, and mining operations began to proliferate, the Chinese, aided by the North Vietnamese, who acted as a surrogate army for their Red friends, began vigorously patrolling the area. During the Vietnam War radar sites and radio listening posts on Spratly Island allowed the Vietcong and China to detect and monitor every vessel and aircraft heading from the Philippines to Saigon, including American B-52 bombers on strike missions into North Vietnam. But the most powerful navy in the postwar world, the United States Navy, exerted the greatest tangible influence over the Spratly Islands. Through its sponsorship, the government of the Philippines began patrolling the islands, eradicating the Vietnamese espionage units and using the islands as a base of operations for controlling access to the western half of the South China Sea. The Chinese had been effectively chased away from the Spratlys, ending five hundred years of dominance there. That became a very sore point for the Chinese. After the Vietnam War, the American presence weakened substantially, which allowed first the Vietnamese Navy, and then the Chinese Navy, to return to the Spratly Islands. But the Philippines still maintained their substantial American-funded military presence there, although they had ceded most of the southern islands to China and Vietnam. The lines had been drawn. The Philippines claimed the thirty atolls north of the nine degrees, thirty minutes north latitude, and the territory in between was a sort of neutral zone. Things were relatively quiet for about ten years following the Vietnam War. But in the late 1 980s conflict erupted again. During the war, Vietnam had accepted substantial assistance from the Soviet Union in exchange for Russian use of the massive Cam Rahn naval base and airbase, which caused a break in relations between China and Vietnam. Vietnam, now trained and heavily armed by the Soviet Union, was excluding Chinese vessels from the oil and mineral mining operations in the Spratlys. Several low-scale battles broke out. It was discovered that the Soviet Union was not interested in starting a war with China to help Vietnam hold the Spratlys, so China moved in and regained the control they had lost forty years earlier. Faced with utter destruction, the Vietnamese Navy withdrew, content to send an occasional reconnaissance flight over the region. That was when Admiral Yin Po L’un had been assigned his Spratly Island flotilla. To his way of thinking, these were not the Spratlys, or the Quan-Dao Mueng Bang as the Vietnamese called them-these were the Nansha Dao, property of the PeopIes Republic of China. China had built a hard-surfaced runway on Spratly Island and had reinforced some stronger reefs and atolls around it enough to create naval support facilities. Their claim was stronger than any other nation. Several other nations had protested the militarization of Spratly Island, but no one had done anything more than talk. To Admiral Yin, it was only a matter of time before all of the Nansha Dao returned to Chinese control. But the Filipino Navy, such as it was, still held very tight control over their unofficially designated territory. Yin’s job was to patrol the region, map out all sea traffic, and report on any new construction or attempts to move oil-drilling platforms, fish-processing vessels, or mining operations in the neutral zone or in the Philippine sector. He was also to report on any movements of the Philippine Navy’s major vessels in the area and to constantly position his forces to confront and defeat the Filipino pretenders should hostilities erupt. Not that the Filipino Navy was a substantial threat to the Chinese Navy-far from it. The strongest of the Filipino ships patrolling the Spratly Islands were forty-year-old frigates, corvettes, radar picket ships, and subchasers, held together by coats of paint and prayers. Still, a threat to Yin’s territory-no matter whom it was from-was a threat, in his mind, to all of China. Thirty minutes later, Yin’s task force had closed to within nine miles of the contact while Wenshan and Xingyi had closed to within one mile; Yin positioned his ships so that he could maintain direct, scrambled communications with his two patrol boats but stay out of sight of the contact. “Dragon, this is Seven, ” the skipper aboard Wenshan, Captain Han, radioed back to Admiral Yin. “I have visual contact. The target is an oil derrick. It appears to be mounted or anchored atop Phu Qui Island. It is surrounded by several supply barges with pipes on board, and two tugboats are nearby. There may be armed crewmen on deck. They are flying no national flags, but there does appear to be a company flag flying. We are moving closer to investigate. Request permission to raise the derrick on radio.” So his instincts had been right An oil derrick in the neutral zone? How dare they place an oil derrick on Chinese property.” Yin turned to Lubu. “I want the transmissions relayed to us. Permission granted to hail the derrick. Tell Captain Han to warn the crew that they will be attacked if they do not remove that derrick from the neutral zone immediately.” A few moments later, Yin heard Han’s warning: “Attention, attention the oil derrick on Phu Qui Island. This is the People’s Republic of China frigate Wenshan on international hailing channel nine. Respond immediately. Over.” Captain Han on Wenshan was speaking in excellent English, the universal sailors language even in this part of the world, and Yin had to struggle to keep up with the conversation. He made a mental note to congratulate Han on his resourcefulness-the Wenshan was not a frigate, but if the crew of the oil derrick believed that it was, they might be less inclined to resist and more inclined to follow orders. “Frigate Wenshan, this is the National Oil Company Barge Nineteen on channel nine. We read you loud and clear. Over.” Admiral Yin seethed. The National Oil Company. That was a Philippine company run by a relative of the new Philippine president, Arturo Mikaso, and headquartered in Manila. Worse, it was financed by and operated mostly by rich Texas oil drillers. American capitalists who obviously thought they could, in their typically imperialistic way, just set up an oil derrick anywhere they pleased. The audacity. To even attempt to build a derrick in a neutral zone. And Yin knew it wasn’t really neutral at all. It was Chinese territory. And the Americans and the Filipinos were trying to rape it. “National Oil Barge Nineteen, ” Han continued, “you are violating international agreements that prohibit any private or commercial mineral exploration or facilities in this area. You are ordered to remove all equipment immediately and vacate the area. You will receive no further warnings. Comply immediately. Over.”
“Vessel Wenshan, we are involved in search and salvage operations at this time, ” a new voice on the radio, young and at ease, replied. “Salvage operations are permitted in international waters. We are not aware of any international agreements involving these waters. You may contact the Philippine or American governments for clarification.”
“National Oil Barge Nineteen, commercial operations in these waters are a direct threat to the national security and business interests of the People’s Republic of China, ” Captain Han replied. He knew that Admiral Yin would not approve of his debating like this over the radio-he was a soldier, Yin would tell him, not a scum-sucking politician-but he wasn’t going to move a meter closer to the Philippine oil derrick unless everyone on board understood why. “You are ordered to discontinue all operations immediately or I will take action.” There was no further reply from the barge crew. “HF radio traffic from the barge, sir, ” Lubu said, relaying a report from his Radio section. “They may be contacting headquarters.” Contacting headquarters? There was no reason for the people on
