The nine-dash line is bonkers. It covers about 2 millions square kilometers of sea all the way to Malaysia. This is akin to the U.S claiming all of the Gulf of Mexico (1.6M km2) as territorial waters and then throwing in part of the the Caribbean Sea for good measure.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

While the United States makes no territorial claims to the South China Sea, it maintains defense pacts with Asian partners, including the Philippines, that could compel American soldiers to these waters.

“I told the Chinese, ‘Your leadership talks about shared prosperity, but what you are doing cannot make it more plain that you think we are just stupid people who can be fooled and bullied,’” said Clarita Carlos, who until January served as the national security adviser of the Philippines.

During a four-day sail through a collection of rocks, reefs and islets called the Spratlys that are within the Dangerous Ground, New York Times journalists saw the extent to which China’s projection of power has transformed this contested part of the Pacific Ocean.

Our boat was Philippine-flagged, and an international tribunal convened by the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2016 that Mischief Reef was part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines.

As dawn broke, we could see both the fortifications on Mischief Reef and an array of Chinese vessels closing in from different directions: half a dozen maritime militia boats and a recently commissioned navy corvette designed to carry anti-ship missiles.

Despite its lack of territorial claims in the South China Sea, the American Seventh Fleet regularly cruises these waters to ensure freedom of navigation for all nations, according to the U.S. Navy.

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