Philippines: China Closes In
May 19, 2023: The Philippines major organized threat is now external, in the form of Chinese claims on many small Filipino islands and large areas of the South China Sea that have long been under Filipino control and recognized as Filipino by treaty and reaffirmed by a 2016 international court ruling against recent Chinese claims. The Philippines is not alone because China claims to control most of the South China Sea.
The South China Sea is one of those ocean areas close to land that are called a “sea” because it is a distinct area. The South China Sea is actually part of the Western Pacific Ocean. The northern boundary is South China while the western boundary is the Indochinese Peninsula. The eastern boundary consists of Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (the islands of Luzon, Mindoro and Palawan). The southern boundary is Borneo, eastern Sumatra and the Bangka Belitung Islands. The Gulf of Thailand and the Gulf of Tonkin are also part of South China Sea.
This South China Sea covers an area of around 3,500,000 square kilometers (1,400,000 square miles). That’s about a third the size of China or the United States. The South China Sea has distinct outlets to the rest of the world. The principles ones are Taiwan Strait to the East China sea, the Luzon Strait to the Philippine Sea and the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. In the last half- century, the South China Sea has become a throughfare for most of the international commerce between the booming East Asian economies of China, South Korea and Japan and the Middle East and Europe via the Suez Canal. This is why China wants to control the South China Sea
https://www.strategypage.com/qnd/phillip/articles/20230519.aspx
