It was reported in the March 3, 1999 edition of the Strait Times that the Philippines is redrawing its map boundaries. According to the article, the new map will place the Spratly Islands within the Philippines exclusive economic zone (EEZ). A country's EEZ extends 200 nautical miles from a country's baseline. The head of the Philippine National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA), Enrique Macaspac, denied that the Philippines is redrawing the map as a way of claiming the Spratlys. "We are not expanding our territory. We are just redefining the baselines to determine the extent of our maritime zones," Macaspac told the Strait Times. It is nevertheless a good bet that those redefined baselines will include the Spratlys in the Philippines' maritime zone. This fiddling with maps and boundaries comes on the heels of a Chinese complaint the day before that Philippines is violating China's "indisputable sovereignty" over the Spratlys. According to the Chinese, the Philippines has been improving military facilities on islands in the Spratly Island chain. An AP story on March 2 quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao as saying, "All of these actions are not conductive to peace and stability in the region and will only lead to an intensification of the situation in the Spratly region." Interestingly enough, the Chinese seem to have echoed almost word for word the same complaint the Philippines has made for several months now against China. At issue here is a longstanding debate over who has claim to the Spratly Islands. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, and China currently occupy various islands in the Spratlys. Brunei also claims a portion of the island chain. However it is the Philippines that continues to face off with China over the issue. Militarily, the Philippines is not capable of standing up to China and taking the islands by force; however, the Philippines does have one critical lever in that it's pursuing the backing of a country that does - the U.S.A.'s reported in previous issues of the AIU (see Volume 2 Number 9 January 14, 1999; Volume 1 Number 44 December 4, 1998; Volume 1 Number 27 November 10, 1998), since the U.S. left Subic Bay in 1992, the Philippine government has been courting the U.S. President Joseph Estrada has worked to enact legislation that will allow U.S. and Philippine forces to train on each other's soil. The immediate hope is that the U.S. will help upgrade the Philippines aging military infrastructure. More importantly, Estrada hopes that the U.S. will become an ally in the Philippine quest to control the Spratlys. The natural question is why are these nations so interested in a bunch of islands that, depending on the tide, are sometimes underwater? One answer is that the Spratlys are home to undetermined amounts of oil and natural gas deposits. While no one knows precisely how much oil and gas exists in the Spratlys, Indonesia is involved with Exxon and Mobile in a $40 billion project on one of its islands. While the Spratlys are an important economic consideration for countries in the region, the Spratlys' significance goes beyond the mere monetary value of these resources. The Spratlys are strategically positioned in the South China Sea at the western exit and entrance to the Strait of Malacca. The Strait connects the South China Sea with the Indian Ocean, making it an important transit point between the two bodies of water. As an example of the importance of this area, approximately 20 percent of all the world's oil travels through the Strait on a daily basis. Only through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf does more oil, on a daily basis, get transported. While uncontested sovereignty over the Spratlys would not mean direct control over the vital Strait of Malacca, it would mean control over the South China Sea and hence indirect control over the shipping en route to and from the Strait of Malacca. This is the real reason that this dispute between China and the Philippines refuses to subside. Most border conflicts are convenient levers to use at particular moments, and then are forgotten about until they are needed again. However, in this case the dispute is over a strategic location and therefore becomes, itself, of prime importance. What China and the Philippines are truly arguing over is not their respective claim to a few pieces of dirt jutting out of the ocean with some oil and gas buried on them. Therefore, what is truly at stake is control over the South China Sea and with it the possibility of shifting the strategic balance in the region. The key to success for the Philippines is garnering U.S. backing, which given the recent and possibly persistent tensions between China and the U.S., should not be difficult to achieve. The area is of just as much interest to the U.S. as it is to the Philippines, and it would be much better to have an ally controlling the area than an adversary.