Recently, China warned the United States that it has “no right to intervene” in its maritime disputes with the Philippines after another clash near Second Thomas Shoal-a disputed reef in the South China Sea.
- Second Thomas Shoal is a submerged reef located in the Spratly Islands. China and the Philippines have had repeated confrontations in the waters over the past year.
- The Philippines deliberately ran aground the Sierra Madre ship on the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 in order to assert Manila’s sovereignty over the area. Filipino troops are stationed on the shipwreck and require regular resupply.
- China claims almost the entire South China Sea , including the Second Thomas Shoal.
- China rejected a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that said that China’s claims did not have any basis under international law.
- Experts have said China’s aim is to push eastwards from the Second Thomas Shoal towards the neighbouring Sabina Shoal in the Spratly Islands, encroaching on Philippines’s exclusive economic zone and normalising Chinese control of the area.
- The confrontations have echoes of 2012 when China took control of Scarborough Shoal, another strategic feature in the South China Sea closest to the Philippines.
