Exclusive economic zone of the Philippines

In 2011, President Benigno Aquino III stated that "China's nine-dash line territorial claim over the entire South China Sea is against international laws, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)".

[9] In July 2016, the Arbitral Tribunal set up under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in the Hague ruled against China's nine-dash line demarcation.

The panel also concluded that Beijing’s activities within the Philippines’ two-hundred-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), such as illegal fishing and environmentally ruinous artificial island construction, infringed on Manila's sovereign rights."

On June 12, 2019, a Chinese vessel collided with and sank an anchored Philippine fishing boat (F/B Gem-Ver 1) near Recto Bank in the South China Sea.

The Chinese vessel did not save the 22 Filipino fishermen on-board according to the Philippine Department of National Defense.

[11] In November 2021, two Filipino military supply boats were blocked by three Chinese coast guard ships which also fired water cannons.