Photo provided by the Armed Forces of the Philippines shows construction on Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) Reef in the Spratly Islands. STAR/Armed Forces of the Philippines, file MANILA, Philippines — China’s efforts to land a military plane to a Manila-claimed reef in the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea was provocative, the Department of National […]

FILE – Filipino student activists set fire mock Chinese ships to protest recent island-building and alleged militarization by China off the disputed Spratlys group of islands in the South China Sea, in Manila, March 3, 2016. FILE – Filipino student activists set fire mock Chinese ships to protest recent island-building and alleged militarization by China […]

Ambient tension in the South China Sea is high as Beijing continues to assertively push its claim for sovereignty over 3 million square kilometres, or 90 per cent of the South China Sea. Tension is set to rise further around April-end and early May when the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea delivers […]

The latest in tensions between the United States and China is the landing of a Chinese military aircraft on Fiery Cross Reef, one of several man-made islands built by China in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea. The Chinese claim the landing was for a humanitarian operation to evacuate three ill workers, […]

As it watches China build up its presence in the South China Sea, one reclaimed island at a time, the US military is betting on a new technology to help retain its edge — submarine drones. During the past six months, the Pentagon has started to talk publicly about a once-secret program to develop unmanned […]

BEIJING – China’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday rejected queries by the US military as to why China had used a military aircraft to evacuate sick workers from a new airport on an island China has built in the disputed South China Sea. CNN quoted Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis as saying it was unclear why […]

A ruling expected in the next few months in an international arbitration case the Philippines has brought against Beijing’s South China Sea claims must be binding, Britain said on Monday. British Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire also said that he sees the ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague as an opportunity […]

CHINA’S RAPID ascent to great-power status has, more than any other international development, raised concerns about the future of the liberal international order. Forged in the ashes of the Second World War, that order has enabled a seven-decade period of great-power peace, the expansion of democratic rule and a massive increase in global prosperity. Now, […]

An interesting piece of trivia came up recently, with the Philippines Navy planning to buy Indian Kamorta class of corvettes. Although officially a corvette, this class of warship is comparable to a frigate in its full displacement and weighs 3400 tons with a length of 109 meters. It also comes with 90 percent Indian indigenous […]

According to a recent Navy Times article, at a National Security Council meeting on 18 March, National Security Advisor Susan Rice ‘imposed a gag order on military leaders over the disputed South China Sea’. Its alleged aim was to “give Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping ‘maximum political maneuvering space’…during the Global Nuclear Summit,” held earlier […]