New laws specifying Manila’s claims have also angered smaller countries such as Malaysia, which could hamper unified resistance to China’s attempts at regional dominance.
The latest confrontation between Philippine and Chinese vessels in disputed waters on the South China Sea took place on Wednesday, with both sides trading blame after Manila claimed that a Chinese patrol fired a water cannon and “sideswiped” a Philippine coast guard boat.
China claimed that Philippine coast guard vessels attempted to “intrude into China’s territorial waters around Huangyan Island,” which is what China calls Scarborough Shoal, a ring of shallow rocks about 220 kilometers (130 nautical miles) off the coast of the Philippine island of Luzon.
China claims nearly the entire South China Sea as its maritime territory, despite a 2016 ruling by an international tribunal declaring these claims invalid under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Among other things, UNCLOS defines a country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) as extending 200 nautical miles from land. The EEZ allows a country rights to marine resources.
For reference, Scarborough Shoal, where these confrontations frequently take place, is over 460 nautical miles (765 kilometers) from the nearest Chinese shore, on Hainan Island, and is well within the Philippine EEZ.
However, these territorial disputes also involve other countries, chiefly Malaysia and Vietnam, both of which have claims in the South China Sea overlapping those of China and the Philippines.
