Filipino and Chinese vessels clash

Footage courtesy of the Philippines Coast Guard (PCG) showing conflict in the crowded waters around Scarborough Shoal. The atoll is a disputed area claimed by the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and by the Republic of the Philippines. The shoal is valuable for fishing and enables control of the South China Sea. Though it lies within the Philippine’s 200 mile exclusion zone, and though arbitration as determined that the Philippines has the rights to those waters, China continues to assert itself through harassment of Filipino fishing vessels by Chinese fishing vessels and patrol craft. China also attempts to bolster its territorial claims by piling spoil atop shoals in the South China Sea until they break the surface, and then claiming that they are islands and the sovereign territory of China.

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