After months of debate and accusations of fecklessness, the U.S. appears ready to challenge China’s island-building in the South China Sea. The question is how. At issue are new islands the Chinese have created by dredging thousands of tons of sand to expand various reefs and rocks in the Spratly archipelago. China claims nearly 80 […]
President Obama’s cyber-security deal with China is beginning to look a lot like his Iran nuke deal: Obama makes loud pronouncements about a new era of mutual understanding and cooperation, while his partners-in-peace stab him in the back. China waited less than 24 hours to resume hacking U.S. companies after Obama and President Xi Jinping […]
It should be a strategic priority to nurture and strengthen the group of regional powers directly affected by Chinese behaviour On one of Margaret Thatcher’s trips to Beijing in the 1980s, Charles Moore tells us in his recent biography, the Chinese leadership hoped to pressure Britain over Hong Kong. They resorted to a most diabolical […]
Last week’s revelation that the Pentagon had been briefing Asian allies that U.S. Navy warships would soon conduct freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea has ramped up tensions in the world’s most hotly contested body of water. Expected to take place within the next few days, the patrols would see U.S. naval […]
Several Chinese military and civilian officials dismissed international concern over their nation’s policy of constructing and building on South China Sea islands at a forum hosted in Beijing this weekend (Oct. 17-18). China’s vice-foreign minister Liu Zhenmin told an audience of regional and international military chiefs, defense ministers, and scholars that not only would […]
BEIJING: The delay in resolving territorial disputes in the South China Sea region is worrying, said Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. Solid trust between leaders and the military of respective nations is therefore crucial in preventing the differences from snowballing into unmanageable conflicts, he said. Hishammuddin was referring to the South China Sea issue, […]
While China’s unilateral declaration of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over disputed waters in the East China Sea (ECS) caught many by surprise, today’s debate circles around the likelihood that Beijing might take the same action over the South China Sea (SCS). In its pursuit of maritime primacy in Northeast Asia, China has strayed […]
President Ronald Reagan, the only U.S. president to reject the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS), still has the most enduring U.S. oceans law legacy. A glance back at Reagan’s approach to oceans governance provides some insight into how he might act if he were confronted with China’s serial violations of the law of […]
Mines are the ninjas of warfare: silent, deadly and a bit unsavory. Sneaky weapons that are extremely effective not just for the damage they cause, but also for the fear and uncertainty they sow. Naval mines are especially potent. American air-dropped mines in Japanese waters in 1945–chillingly but accurately code-named Operation Starvation–sank more ships than […]
BEIJING—China on Saturday sought to soothe tensions over its South China Sea claims, saying it will avoid the use of force in the region as the United States ponders sending warships close to territory claimed by the Asian giant. Speaking at the Xiangshan regional defense forum in Beijing, Fan Changlong, vice chair of China’s Central […]