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CBS News has exclusive reporting from the South China Sea where tensions between China and the Philippines, a key American ally, are intensifying.
US intelligence agencies are closely monitoring activity around the disputed Scarborough Shoal, according to US officials familiar with the matter.
It's located about 140 miles west of an island in the Philippines.
The officials say the Chinese government installed what Beijing has called a quote scientific structure in the middle of the reef, which has angered the Philippines.
The uninhabited area came under Chinese control in 2012 following a 10-week standoff between the Philippines and China.
Last year, China established a nature reserve at the shoal, prompting protests from the Philippines.
For more, let's bring in James LaPorta, who broke that story for us alongside Olivia Gazis.
He's CBS News' national security coordinating producer.
So, James, as we mentioned, China controls the shoal.
Why is the presence of this so-called scientific structure angering the Philippines, and what might this indicate about China's bigger plans here?
>> Right.
Uh all very good questions.
So, it's it's really not about the platform itself or even some of the underwater barriers that China's put in.
It's really about what the platform itself represents.
And what it represents is sort of a historical playbook that China has used where they put um they establish a presence, and then they incrementally put in infrastructure, and then permanent control.
And so, what this really does is it expands China's influence in the region and their ability to project power in the region.
And so, what the worry is is that if they do establish a foothold here, right, they'll be able to better um monitor maritime activity.
They'll be better to reinforce its claims over waters that already an international tribunal had ruled uh they do not have exclusive rights to.
And and and it would better um it would be better for China to project their power.
So, that's really the issue.
It's not really so much about the barrier itself or the underwater barrier itself, but really what it represents because China has historically turned these um these territories into uh permanent infrastructures where they've been able to build airfields and even missile bases.
>> What's the US doing about it?
>> So, that's another good question.
So, so look, the United States isn't going to get into a fight with China over over this.
What it's trying to do is prevent a permanent uh it's trying to prevent China from getting a permanent stronghold.
So, right now it's it's I really have broken it down into a sort of three phases for for the United States in conjunction with the Philippines.
So, the first part is what's happening now is it's intelligence collection.
It's monitoring the monitoring the situation.
The second is the United States and the Philippines have a defense treaty.
So, they patrol both the United States and the Philippines patrol the area.
Uh and to push back on Chinese aggression in the area.
And the third is really diplomatic signaling from Washington to Beijing that the Chinese aggression in the area will not be tolerated.
>> You have new reporting about the Defense Department's plans for Iran's uranium if a deal is reached.
What should we know?
>> Yes.
So, earlier today we reported that So, the the Pentagon is a planning institution and given that there might we might be on the cusp of a memorandum of understanding between the Washington and Tehran.
The Pentagon The Pentagon has begun planning to figure out what they would do with the highly enriched uranium in Iran.
And so, part of that planning is that the Pentagon is looking at ways to support the Department of Energy to go into Iran and to seize the highly enriched uranium.
The Pentagon had planning similar to this, so you might remember earlier in the US Israel war with Iran when we had an F-15 Strike Eagle go down and we had that large combat search and rescue.
There was actually a plan at that time for US special operations to go into Iran along with um uh specialized teams from the Department of Energy to seize that highly enriched uranium.
So, this is similar to that that plan prior that that they had earlier in the war.
But, this is this deal this plan is coming together right at the time when the memorandum of of understanding between Tehran and Washington is coming together.
>> All right, James LaPorta.
Thank you.
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