In 1999 the Philippine Marines ran this former U.S. Navy ship aground on a coral reef named Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands archipelago. Essentially the ship acts as an ocean-going game of squatter’s rights over the not-quite-island ‘maritime feature’, and the Philippines continues re-supplying the ailing ship and the seamen who live aboard. As of late, the Chinese Coast Guard has been trying to interfere with those supply deliveries. If this dispute escalates further could draw in U.S. naval forces to direct conflict with China in aid of long-time Pinoy strategic allies.

The boat, now dubbed the BRP Sierra Madre, started life as the USS Harnett County, serving in World War II and the Vietnam War before transferring to the Republic of Vietnam Navy in 1970 as the RVNS My Tho. After moving 3,000 Vietnamese refugees to Subic Bay in the Philippines during the fall of Saigon, the ship was then transferred to Philippine ownership. Again the ship was renamed, first the BRP Dumagat, then the BRP Sierra Madre. From 1976 to 1999 it served as transport for the Philippine navy, before being run aground.

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Any move by China to seize Second Thomas Shoal would put pressure on the U.S. to back up its ally—not just diplomatically but also militarily. That could bring the U.S. into direct conflict with China, carrying huge risks for both powers. Beijing might see a window of opportunity while the U.S. is preoccupied with the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, security analysts said.

The U.S. response to developments in the South China Sea are under greater scrutiny because of events in 2012 that scarred the alliance and caused lasting national trauma in the Philippines. That year, after a weekslong standoff between Chinese and Philippine forces, China seized a coral atoll called Scarborough Shoal. Officials in Manila said later the U.S. hadn’t done enough to support its ally, allowing Beijing to wrest control with few repercussions.

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