yes, but for the last 300 years, the West Philippine sea has been under the control of the Philippines and VietNam.
The last “chinese” who controlled the are were pirates from South China, and the Philippines and Spain fought them off.
China is hinting they want to take over the northern isand of Luzon, where many Chinese immigrants live, and they are now positioning Chinese militaryas “employees” on the on line casinos here (one local news paper estimates 5000 of them).
https://opinion.inquirer.net/127933/fifth-column
Duterte is “pro China’, partly because the CIA had their own candidate for president and Duterte won, and now CIA fronts are funding opposition newspapers and “human right” complaints against him.
President Obama refused to help the Philippine militarily stop China, and said take it to court. Well, the Philippines won, and now those shoals are man made military bases.
Duterte figures the Philippines is too weak to stop China, and sees Trump now trying to stop China as a losing fight for the Philippines. And of course many of the Manila families have Chinese ties or take money from China, but the average person hates China.
it is true that this sealane is west of the Molacca straits, but is the short cut to east Asia...and east Russia. Remember, China once “owned” Siberia, and there are many Chinese “immigrants” in the eastern cities of Russia.
as for shipping: True, boats can spend more money traveling east of the Philippines instead, but the bad news is that China is starting to make aggressive noises about one shoal on our eastern coast too.
You might say that this is not the US fight, but China is pushing around India and Indonesia to grab lane or sea resources, and has been pressuring Australia to throw out the USA,
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Thanks for all this great info LadyDoc. I forgot you are a Philippines resident, right?
I need to get to bed, but will return to your post tomorrow when I can do a little background research and more fully understand the issues.
The recent visit ti India seems to have been a bit more than a state visit.
Noteable is that a journalist from India was given WH press credentials, called on by POTUS and then asked 3 quick-fire questions at the Wednesday Rose Garden announcement.
The questions were not gotcha-types, were quite germane to the topic and allowed POTUS to keep the conversation on-track.
I don’t think he was a “plant” but his style and deference to POTUS (consistently called him “Sir”) told me a lot about his journalistic integrity and sense of decorum.
That and he was a contrast to a sea of white faces in the gaggle. THAT last point was Trump’s shiv, placed firmly in Acosta’s ribs.
THanks for that info about the PI.