A report from Kyodo News International says that lawmakers from Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are trying to create a Japanese version of the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. law that governs Washington’s relations with Taipei. Japan does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but the proposed law would seek to formalize the current unofficial […]
China could trigger a paradigm shift in the disputes in the South China Sea if it were to issue charts indicating the outer limit of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claims from the islands over which it claims sovereignty. A full effect ‘equidistance line’ from the largest islands towards the surrounding coasts would create a […]
As noted last week, the U.S. has lodged its objection to China’s “nine-dash-line” claim to the South China Sea. It is right to do so for two reasons. First, in contrast to what China claims, the U.S. clearly stating its position on the conflict will reduce the chance that the U.S. and China will come […]
Asia Weekly, a Hong Kong-based news outlet (Chinese controlled), is reporting that Japan is secretly developing a nuclear weapons program in response to increasing hostilities with China over the East China Sea dispute. According to the report, paraphrased by the Want China Times, “With the capability to build at least 2,000 nuclear warheads, Japan has recently […]
A senior U.S. military officer has accused China’s People Liberation Army of training for a “short sharp war” against Japan in the East China Sea aimed at seizing the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. According to the U.S. Naval Institute, Captain James Fanell, Director, Intelligence and Information Operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said that the massive Mission […]
Indonesia has had a rocky couple of weeks in its relations with its neighbors. While Ted Piccone and Bimo Yusman wrote last week about Indonesia’s decade of qualified diplomatic successes, in a series of separate and mostly unrelated naval developments the archipelagic nation has in turn aggrieved, or been aggrieved by, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, […]
BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) — China on Wednesday urged the international community to be on alert for any comments which attempt to vindicate Japan’s invasion history and challenge post-war world order. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying’s comments came in response to a question regarding recent Japanese comments. Chairman of Japan’s public broadcaster NHK Katsuto […]
Over the last month and a half, seven significant developments indicate that tensions in the South China Sea are set to rise in both the short and long term. The five short-term trends include: Philippine defiance of China’s fishing ban; continued inaction by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); the Chinese navy’s repeated assertions […]
TAIPEI – China has no plans of establishing an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea, a ranking Taiwanese official said Monday, citing an assurance from Beijing. Chu-Chia Lin, deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), told an international group of reporters here that China’s assurance came after Taipei asked Beijing […]
MANILA – Marking the 35th anniversary of the short but bloody China-Vietnam border war, Vietnamese living in the Philippines linked arms Monday with Filipino activists in reminding Beijing to stop using force to assert its will on its neighbors in pushing its territorial claims. In a mass action outside the Chinese consulate in Makati City, […]