Earlier this month, China declared new “baselines” around Scarborough Reef, a large coral atoll topped by a handful of rocks barely above sea level in the South China Sea.
By doing so, China reaffirmed its sovereignty claim over what has become a global flashpoint in the disputed waters.
This was a pre-calculated response to the Philippines’ enactment of new maritime laws two days earlier that aimed to safeguard its own claims over the reef and other contested parts of the sea.
