{"id":65872,"date":"2024-07-26T08:30:34","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T23:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/jul\/26\/i-did-it-as-quietly-as-i-could-the-navy-chief-who-wrecked-his-ship-to-scupper-chinas-ambitions"},"modified":"2024-07-26T08:30:34","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T23:30:34","slug":"i-did-it-as-quietly-as-i-could-the-navy-chief-who-wrecked-his-ship-to-scupper-chinas-ambitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=65872","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I did it as quietly as I could\u2019: the navy chief who wrecked his ship to scupper China\u2019s ambitions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vice Admiral Eduardo Santos was in charge of the Philippine navy at a time of \u2018creeping invasion\u2019 by China. Then along came an unusual idea<\/p>\n<p>More than 25 years ago, the BRP Sierra Madre was sent off for one final, secret voyage. In the darkness of night, the Philippine navy ship sailed from Manila Bay into the remote waters of the South China Sea. Then, to the surprise of many, it ran aground, and hasn\u2019t moved since.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did it as quietly as I could, so I would not raise any hackles among anybody,\u201d says retired Vice Adm Eduardo Santos, who was chief of the navy at the time. To him, it was a case of mission accomplished. His plan had been to run the ship on to a small reef known as Second Thomas Shoal, one of the world\u2019s most fiercely contested maritime sites, without China knowing. The move would help the Philippines defend the area for decades to come.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/jul\/26\/i-did-it-as-quietly-as-i-could-the-navy-chief-who-wrecked-his-ship-to-scupper-chinas-ambitions\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vice Admiral Eduardo Santos was in charge of the Philippine navy at a time of \u2018creeping invasion\u2019 by China. Then along came an unusual ideaMore than 25 years ago, the BRP Sierra Madre was sent off for one final, secret voyage. In the darkness of night,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":860,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,55,535],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-philippines","category-south-china-sea"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65873,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65872\/revisions\/65873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}