Philippines says 220 Chinese boats have encroached in South China Sea

China says: Look over there. Nothing to see here. Don't pay attention.

Don't raise any questions, issues, don't file formal complaint in the UN and certainly don't capture boats doing illegal activities in your waters, take the crews off, and sink them.

I bet the US military could backup the Philippines faster if there were US troops in the Philippines today. Mr. Duterte made a bad decision, it appears.

Mr. Duterte had also dismissed the deterrent effect of American forces against China, with which the Philippines has overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea. “They do not mean harm,” he said of China and its military, as long as “we do not also do something that is harmful to them.”

Which belongs to China. Philippine is playing the aid game between US and China. It is very lucrative for NK, they copy.

japan just pays up.

Saw a photo of these ships yesterday, anchored in long rows. Really big, like mother ships.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56474847

220 fishing Chinese fishing boats! I’ll bet the Philippine fisherman are not too thrilled about this. This is what happens when your leaders crawl in bed with China. We need Rodney Dangerfield in the background saying, “No respect!”

Wiki has updated this. Looks like the Chinese are about to take control of this reef, an arrowhead at the NE edge of the Union Banks in the Spratlys. (Claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam and China.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitsun_Reef

The PI and the entire world needs to treat these Chinese "Fishing Flotilas as military vessels under their "Maritime Militia" designation as they are controlled by the Chinese PLA Navy. A 200 ship fleet in any disputed waters is an "invasion" and should be treated as such. This is another sneaky Chinese method of mixing civilian/military, strategic/economic to cloud their slow calculated advance to expand their territory at the expense of their smaller neighbors.

A quick perusal of a map shows clearly that China&s claim is laughable. The area is far closer to Vietnam and the PI. It is an obvious power/resource grab on the part of Communist China.

China is like the jolly new wife.

”What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine too.”

Who says China is not a bully?

These islands are only hundreds of miles from the Philippines, but thousands of miles from the Chinese mainland - they were never part of China at any time

Some dude in China just arbitrarily drew the "dash-line" in 1947 with no scientific study at all claiming 9/10ths of the South China Sea. Really, check it out. China always just cites the "dash-line" as the basis for their claim, but people should then ask what the "dash-line" is based of. Nobody could come up --not even China-- how the "dash-line" was formulated

It's called hegemony, but China has probably never heard of this concept, or understood its meaning.

China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday, and calls to the Chinese embassy in Manila seeking comment went unanswered. China picks and chooses who they want to respond to fearing NO RESPONSE to country they see as no threat.