Ramming boats, building militarized islands and threatening perceived trespassers — China is escalating confrontations with the Philippines in a bid to push it out of the South China Sea, analysts say.
One of the most perilous flashpoints between the two nations is a submerged reef called the Second Thomas Shoal, where in 1999 the Philippine navy intentionally marooned a decrepit World War II ship to assert the country's territorial claims.
Still home to a small garrison of Filipino marines, the crumbling BRP Sierra Madre sits around 200 kilometers from the western Philippine island of Palawan and over 1,000 km from China's nearest major landmass.