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"The living conditions are pretty simple," Tan Xiankun, director of the office in Hainan overseeing Xisha and other South China Sea territories, told The Associated Press in 2010. "It's very humid and hot, more than 30 degrees, and there's salt everywhere. There's no fresh water, except for what's shipped in and what's collected from rain water." Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said Manila has expressed its concern and registered a strong protest with Beijing over the decision to set up a military garrison on Sansha. "The Philippines does not recognize the Sansha city and the extent of its jurisdiction and considers recent measures taken by China as unacceptable," Hernandez told a news conference. Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said in a statement that Vietnam had protested to the Chinese foreign ministry. "China's establishment of the so-called 'Sansha City' ... violated international law, seriously violating Vietnam sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagoes," Nghi said. A report released Tuesday by the International Crisis Group think tank said that although China's large claim to the South China Sea and its assertive approach has rattled other claimants, Beijing is "not stoking tensions on its own." "South East Asian claimants, with Vietnam and the Philippines in the forefront, are now more forcefully defending their claims
-- and enlisting outside allies -- with considerable energy," it said, a reference to Washington's move to influence the Asian balance of power by supporting China's neighbors.
The report also warned that the risk of escalation was high and urged claimants to find ways to jointly manage energy resources and fishing areas while also agreeing on a mechanism for handling incidents. "In the absence of such a mechanism, tensions in the South China Sea could all too easily be driven to irreversible levels," it said.
[Associated
Press;
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