Welcome to the President's inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, the Marion David Boyes,

distinguished senior fellow in U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This week's topic is the China-Philippine standoff.

With me to discuss the ongoing confrontation between China and the Philippines over their completing claims in the South China Sea

and what it all means for the United States is Derek Grossman.

Derek is a senior defense analyst at Rand and professor of policy analysis at the Rand School

of Public Policy.

He has written extensively on Indo-Pacific security issues, U.S.-China competition,

and Asian geopolitical competition.

Before joining Rand, Derek served for over a decade in the U.S.

intelligence community as the Daily Intelligence Briefer to the Director of the Defense

Intelligence Agency and to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific

Security Affairs. He also served in the National Security Agency and worked at the CIA on the

President's Daily Brief. Derek, thank you for joining me on the President's inbox.

Thanks, Jim. Great to be here. I'm a big fan of the pod.

Well, thank you. I love flattery, and let's get right at it. If we could, Derek, could you tell

me about the Sierra Madre, the ship that the

Philippines ran aground in the second Thomas Scholl, in the Spratly Islands, about 25 years ago?

Sure, yeah. So the Sierra Madre is a World War II era Navy ship that, as you said, the Philippines decided to intentionally ground back in 1999.

And the reason why they did that is to demonstrate by forming a new military facility on Second Thomas Scholl that their exclusive economic zone, their EEZ, is in fact

their EEZ, both legally and per international norms of behavior. And that has really angered

the Chinese because the Chinese have a very expansive claim in the South China Sea based on historical territorial rights.

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