‘Dream tour’ to Scarborough Shoal raffled off in China

Scarborough Shoal

MANILA, Philippines—In China, the dream to set foot on Scarborough Shoal may not be true after all.

Quoting a local report, the Wall Street Journal China said a group buying site Meituan held a lottery over the weekend with a daytrip “dream tour” to Scarborough Shoal, which the Chinese claim as Huangyan Island.

Over 50,000 Chinese netizens responded to the lottery, the report said.

It added that a contest listing on another website, showed an advertisement that said, “A dream come true, Meituan takes you to Huangyan Island for a day,” which linked to the original Meituan offer.

But the advertisement has been taken down, the repost said.

When contacted about the post, a Meituan representative said that the offer “has already finished,” according to the report.

“But Chinese group buying websites often cross-post offers, and a web search turned up the advertisement on a number of web sites. The Meituan representative didn’t respond to inquiries about whether or how the trip would be carried out,” the report said.

Citing an article from China’s Oriental Morning Post, the report said that an official from Hainan’s Sanya city said such a trip would carry “enormous risk,” and that the chances of reaching the islands would be “incredibly small.”

The article said that only naval ships and approved fishing vessels are allowed to sail to Huangyan island, adding that “industry experts dumped even more cold water on the plans.”

“Though the purported itinerary for the trip has tourists hopping a speedboat from Hainan — first to the Paracels in six to eight hours, and then to Huangyan Island in another three to four hours — experts said that a normal journey to Huangyan by sea would take 30 hours from Hainan. And perhaps of greater risk to tourists than any naval confrontation, the article points out typhoon season is just starting up in the South China Sea,” the article said.

But with the advertisement pulled out, the report said there were “slim” chances for the winner “to see what their country is beefing about.”

“But given the likely practical impediments, and the lack of answers about who was making the offer, it’s unclear any winner would ever have the chance to collect,” the report said.

The Scarborough Shoal or what is called Panatag Shoal in the Philippines is the disputed territory between the Philippines and China. It is located about 127 nautical miles from the Philippine shores and 472 nautical miles from China’s nearest land mass.