Why the U.S. Faces a Delicate Balancing Act on Countering China in the South China Sea

in the South China Sea to see how much it can push before someone, meaningfully, pushes back. It’s a dangerous game that recently left three Philippine Navy personnel injured after their resupply ship to the Second Thomas Shoal—an atoll at the center of disputes over rival territorial claims of the all-important waterway through which a third of the world’s trade passes—was surrounded and fired upon with a water cannon by Chinese coast guard and militia vessels.

Whether the war of words could one-day morph into an actual war, however, analysts say, is dependent on a number of competing considerations. Allowing Beijing’s aggression against the Philippines to continue unchecked would be detrimental to U.S. interests, says Kevin Chen, associate research fellow at RSIS. Chen tells TIME that the U.S. risks losing “trade routes through the South China Sea, its standing as a security partner, and its access to bases in the Philippines, which would be invaluable in the event of a Taiwan contingency,” should it leave the Philippines to fend for itself.

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