United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has expressed support for Manila’s opposition to Beijing’s plan to designate the contested Scarborough Shoal as a “nature reserve”, characterising the move as part of a broader Chinese strategy of coercion in the South China Sea.
“The US stands with our Philippine ally in rejecting China’s destabilising plans to establish a ‘national nature reserve’ at Scarborough Reef,” Rubio wrote on the X social media platform on Friday.
