ABSTRACT
The territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands was in the 1990s often described as a major regional security flashpoint. The dispute was one of the crucial problems afflicting China and the four Southeast Asian claimant states – Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. Part of the defense modernization undertaken by the Southeast Asian states was related to this issue. The seriousness of the matter was demonstrated in February 1995, when China encroached on the Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef in the Spratlys. The then Philippine Defense Secretary Orlando S. Marcado later described the Chinese occupation of Mischief Reef and the fortification of its structures in late 1998 as a strong indication of China’s “creeping invasion” of the “disputed South China Sea chain.”1
