Some have dubbed the area as the “second Persian Sea”
• As the link between the Pacific and Indian Ocean and adjacent to the Straits of Malacca, the Sea is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world
• In the 1980s, at least 270 merchant ships used the route each day
• Currently, more than half the world’s supertanker traffic by tonnage passes through it every year, a figure rising steadily with the growth of East Asian economies like China