The rusting Philippine ship raising US-China tensions

The rusting and disintegrating hulk of a former Second World War landing ship has become an unlikely but dangerous flashpoint in US-China relations. The Sierra Madre, built for the US navy to land tanks, has for several decades been stranded on a shoal in the South China Sea. But now it has become a symbol of Beijing’s growing aggression in the region and its disdain for international law.

The Philippines, which bought the ship in 1976, intentionally grounded her on the largely submerged Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly islands in 1999 to defend their claim to the territory. There she has remained to this day as a lonely symbol of sovereignty and home to a small contingent of Philippine marines. For many years, the biggest threat came from the weather, eating away at the hull to the point where it is now starting to fall apart. Now the threat comes from Beijing, which claims almost the entire South China Sea as its territory. This has led Washington to step up warnings that the Sierra Madre is covered by a mutual defence treaty between the US and the Philippines. At