{"id":23579,"date":"2026-04-16T13:16:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T07:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=23579"},"modified":"2026-04-16T14:19:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:49:39","slug":"scarborough-shoal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/scarborough-shoal\/","title":{"rendered":"Scarborough Shoal"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Scarborough Shoal Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">China is employing ships and a barrier to tighten control of the entrance to the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea amid roiling tension with the Philippines over the disputed feature.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Scarborough Shoal<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>disputed atoll <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/south-china-sea\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b>South China Sea<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>claimed by both China and the Philippines <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as part of their territory.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>called Huangyan Island by China<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>Panatag Shoal, or Bajo de Masinloc by<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>Philippines<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was named for the HMS Scarborough, an English ship chartered by the East India Company that struck the atoll in the 18th century.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It lies roughly <\/span><b>220 km west of Luzon, the Philippines\u2019 main island,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and more than 8<\/span><b>00 km southeast of Hong Kong.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the <\/span><b>largest atoll in the South China Sea.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It covers an area of 150 sq.km. which <\/span><b>includes a shallow navigable lagoon.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Most of the atoll<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is <\/span><b>submerged at high tide,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> but <\/span><b>several rocks,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the<\/span><b> most prominent <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of which is called <\/span><b>South Rock, remain above water.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>What is the Dispute?<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>China\u2019s claim<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: China makes a <\/span><b>historical claim<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to the area, stating that they can <\/span><b>trace their ownership <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the area back to the <\/span><b>Yuan Dynasty<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the <\/span><b>1200s<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Philippines claim<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The Philippines claim the area on the <\/span><b>basis of geography, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as it is much <\/span><b>closer to the Philippines\u2019 main island of Luzon,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which contains the capital, Manila, but <\/span><b>lies over 500 miles from China.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>considered within the Philippines<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019 200-nautical mile <\/span><b>exclusive economic zone, based on the 1982 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (<\/span><b>UNCLOS<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are <\/span><b>no structures built <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">on Scarborough Shoal, but the feature is <\/span><b>effectively controlled by China<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which has <\/span><b>maintained a constant coast guard presence<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the feature <\/span><b>since 2012.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Commercial Significance:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The surrounding waters have <\/span><b>rich fishing grounds<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the seabed is believed to hold substantial <\/span><b>mineral resources,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> including <\/span><b>petroleum and natural gas. <\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiatoday.in\/world\/story\/china-south-china-sea-shoal-blockade-ships-barriers-2896711-2026-04-15\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IT<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scarborough Shoal is a disputed atoll in the South China Sea, claimed by both China and the Philippines as part of their territory. Read more about Scarborough Shoal, Location, Area, Dispute, Control, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,2646,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-23579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-scarborough-shoal","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23579"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98597,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23579\/revisions\/98597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}