Most of my friends are understandably very upset with China for its occupation of the entirety of the South China Sea (or West Philippine Sea, if you’d like to be fruitlessly politically correct).
It’s not just because the Philippines won its case in international court in the Hague, but quite simply, even a 7-year-old would know China is being patently unfair if the child is shown a map of the swath of sea claimed by China but bordered mostly by other countries.
Some are additionally upset because of possible mineral, petroleum, and marine resources in the region.
Finally, there’s the concomitant destruction of coral reefs and ecosystems when the Chinese build their island bases.
I’m not as upset as most. Partially, I have doubts about how much those islands are worth to our economy. I think if a lot more were, we’d have been already exploiting those resources by now. As it is, all I’ve seen so far are some fishing boats shooed away and exploration projects put on hold. (Many of the latter would be unsuccessful anyway; that’s just the way the upstream petroleum industry is).
Much more importantly, I’m not as upset because I know in the world of geopolitics, losing territory to greater powers is simply the way the ball rolls. (And how the Philippines and the United States dropped the ball on this one!)