On September 10, 2025, China designated Scarborough Shoal, a 50-kilometer-wide triangular cluster of rocks and reefs in the South China Sea, as a protected marine reserve. While presented as an environmental measure, the move immediately sparked controversy, with the Philippines condemning it as an attempt to assert control over a strategically important waterway. The shoal lies just 134 nautical miles from the Filipino coast, within Manila's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and in an area it calls the West Philippine Sea. The shoal has been contested ever since 2012, when China seized it by force after a tense confrontation with Filipino ships.
In 2016, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Arbitration Tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines, declaring China's claims to Scarborough Shoal legally unfounded. Despite this ruling, tensions continued to escalate. Since 2023, encounters between Chinese Coast Guard vessels and Filipino ships have increased in
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