MILITARY TENSIONS BETWEEN the Philippines and China have been increasing in recent years. In addition to their disagreement over the Spratly islands, the Philippines and China actively contest territorial sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal (called Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines, and Huangyan Dao in Chinese), located in the northeastern part of the South China Sea. Scarborough Shoal was the focus of an on-again off-again Sino-Philippine naval standoff during April 2012. Some even referred to China's obstructionist tactics as a naval “blockade.”

Since opening relations with China in 1975, the Philippine's economic interaction with the PRC has become increasingly important, with China growing in 2013 to become the third highest trade partner (accounting for 12% of the Philippine's exports and 11% of its imports) after Japan and the United States. In 2015, their bilateral trade hit $17,646 billion, with Manila importing almost twice ($11,471 billion) what it exported ($6,175 billion). This growing trade relationship could be severely damaged by any SCS maritime disputes.

While China asserts territorial sovereignty over the majority of the SCS on historic grounds, the Philippines claims sovereignty over many of the same islands. It refers to a number of the Spratly islands as the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG), basing its claim to the right of discovery. Even though the Philippines “won” the U.N. tribunal decision, rather than challenge China's presence in disputed waters - such as Scarborough Shoal - the current Philippine government and the PRC appear to have negotiated a separate compromise, but there are valid doubts that it will succeed. We will start with the Philippine claim.

THE PHILIPPINE CLAIM

The Philippine island province of Palawan is located less than 50 nm from the easternmost islands in the Spratly archipelago, well within the Philippine's 200 nm EEZ. This makes the Philippine Republic the closest nation geographically to the Spratlys, which helps explain the Philippine's extreme interest in the SCS. But no official territorial claim was made by the Philippine government until the late 1970s, which greatly weakens Manila's case when compared to either the PRC, ROC, or Vietnam.

Parts of the Spratly archipelago were explored by Philippine civilians shortly after World War II. On 23 July 1946, the Philippines announced “inclusion of the Spratly Islands into its national defense space,” which was not a formal claim but indicated that it considered the Spratlys to be terra nulliusd.