NewsTracker Answers for week of May 01, 2023

Q: In the face of aggressive territorial claims by China, the Philippines and United States have been holding their biggest combined military exercises yet. Where are the Philippine islands?

Circle the area on this map

Q: China claims most of the South China Sea as its territory, overlapping claims by the Philippines and five other neighboring states. The South China Sea borders the Philippines mainly to the ...

A. North

B. East

C. South

D. West

B. The Philippine Islands are bordered to the east by the South China Sea, the southwest by the Sulu Sea, the south by the Celebes Sea, the west by the Philippine Sea and the north by the Luzon Strait. All of these waters are marginal seas of the Pacific Ocean.

Q: The governments of the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia have clashed over fishing, oil and gas development, trade, and military control in the South China Sea. About how much of the world’s maritime trade travels through the sea?

A. 10%

B. 25%

C. 33%

D. 50%

C. An estimated $3.37 trillion worth of trade crosses the South Sea each year, about one third of global maritime trade. That includes 80% of China’s energy imports and 39.5% of its total trade. But, the competing territorial claims and increased tensions between the U.S. and China have turned the sea into one of the world's biggest flash-points.

Q: After a Chinese coast guard ship allegedly hit a Philippine patrol vessel with a military-grade laser that briefly blinded some of its crew earlier this year, the United States renewed its pledge to help the Philippines defend its 7,641 islands. Which geography term describes the Philippines?

A. Archipelago

B. Atoll

C. Aquiclude

D. Antipode

A. An archipelago is a collection of islands in a sea. The United States and the Philippines have had a mutual defense treaty since 1951 that requires both nations to defend each other if attacked by an external party.

Q: The Philippines also agreed this year to a larger American military presence in its islands amid worries about China’s moves in the South China Sea and its increasing threats against which island across the Luzon Strait?

A. Leyete

B. Luzon

C. Mindanao

D. Taiwan

D. Taiwan is an island off the coast of China at the junction of the South China Sea and the East China Sea. It has a democratic government that has been beyond the control of the mainland Chinese government since the end of the nation’s civil war in 1949. Taiwan is just 93 miles from Luzon, the largest Philippine island.