Scarborough Shoal is of critical strategic significance to China.  It forms the third point in a "strategic triangle" with the Parcel Islands and Spratly Islands, which would allow China to expand its operational reach over the entire South China Sea.  If  China were able to militarize Scarborough Shoals, it would likely move to establish an ADIZ over the entire region, as it did with the ECS.  And the shoal is less than 150 miles from the Philippine coast, alarmingly close to the philippines's Basa Air Base, where US troops can be stationed under a bilateral military pact.

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