EMBATTLED SOUTH CHINA SEA

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South china sea, its a 3 million sq km dotted by tiny islands, and many of its waters are thought to hold rich oil and natural gas deposits. Tensions have been rising between china, which claims almost all of the south china sea and some of the other Asian states that assert sovereignty over partgs of it. The Philippines, which says that chinese ships have harassed its survey ships and fishing boats a half-dozen times. the Philippines announced it would begin to refer to the area as the west Philippine sea and sent its navy's flagship, the world war 11-era frigate Rajah humabou, to patrol it. Vietnam accuses chinese vessels of deliberately cutting, the cables of survey ships belonging to PetroVietnam. Aircraft- carrier once known as the VARYAG generated much concern having relate all this allegations by chinese neighbours. This ship was one of the Soviet union's last naval commissions. chinese company, based in Macau and with ties to the Chinese navy, bought it from Ukraine, ostensibly to take the ship to the gambling enclave as a floating casino. Varyag lunch comes at a fraught time, when China's Armed Forces spending on annual average is up to 15%.          Military Spending in the US (2010) $698 billion, China $119. Percentage of GDP US 4.8%, China 2.1%,