The Philippines is taking steps to mend its relations with China, but emphasized that it will not drop its arbitration case against Beijing, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said on Thursday. Relations between the two Asian neighbors plunged to its lowest when the Philippines sought arbitration in January 2013 to try to declare as illegal […]
The United States and not China should write the trade rules for Asia, US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday night as he called on his country to speed up regional trade deals. In his annual State of the Union address in Washington, Obama warned that if China prevailed, American workers and businesses would be […]
Manila: All ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and China must work together to reduce tension due to the overlapping claims in the South China Sea, an American official said, adding the US and all other countries in the world want to remain as neutral referees who aim to end tension […]
China’s East Sea policy has a clear delineation between short term and long term. The strategy to maintain a continuous presence in the undisputed waters to gradually turn them into disputed areas has been resolutely pursued by Beijing. The 981 oil rig incident is a typical example. China used this oil rig as a “mobile […]
Military Spending: In the face of an expansionist China seeking to dominate the East and South China Seas, Tokyo has set its largest defense budget ever to help defend islands that it rightfully considers Japanese territory. As its military, economy and ambitions grow, so too does China’s assertiveness about control of the Yellow Sea, the […]
As part of a broader project of land reclamation, beginning in November China started efforts to develop Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands. As of late November the reef had been built up to 3,000 meters long and between two and three hundred wide. This makes it large enough, in the assessment of analysts […]
From the air, the Spratly Islands, a cluster of miniature rocks and sandbars 425,000 kilometres square in the middle of the South China Sea, are almost imperceptible. Even up close, the Spratlys do not look like much – a few islands have tiny rocky beaches or occasional makeshift buildings. A tiny contingent of Filipino marines […]
There has recently been a touch of disagreement on this site between Linda Jakobson of the Lowy Institute and Bonnie Glaser of CSIS about the motivations for China’s actions in the South China Sea. In short, Jakobson argues that China’s decision-making can be explained by bureaucratic competition between China’s various maritime agencies, whereas Glaser says […]
Let’s assume 2015 is the year that Taiwan’s government normally friendly to Beijing starts resisting China instead. President Ma Ying-jeou’s Nationalist Party needs some anti-Communist credits for a shot at the presidency next year after disruptive mass protests and surprising local election losses in 2014. As if to kick off that campaign, Taiwan hoisted its […]
BEIJING: China on Monday hit back at the Philippines for criticizing Beijing’s ongoing reclamation project in the disputed South China Sea, saying that its actions were within the scope of Chinese sovereignty. China lays claim to almost all of the entire South China Sea, believed to be rich with minerals and oil-and-gas deposits. Brunei, Malaysia, […]