SHANGHAI – While commodities traders still work their way out of a historic slump, Japan is looking ahead to the next boom. According to Bloomberg News, next year a group of Japanese companies and government agencies will start mining minerals at a site 1,600 km southwest of Tokyo — and 1.6 km beneath the ocean’s […]

TOKYO — China strongly warned a high-level Japanese official around late June that Tokyo should not send its Self-Defense Forces to join U.S. operations that test the freedom of navigation in the disputed South China Sea, diplomatic sources said Saturday. Japan will “cross a red line” if SDF vessels take part in U.S. freedom of […]

THE Philippines should now muster the support of the international community in changing the mind-set of the Chinese people over their “ownership” of the South China Sea before their government would comply with the recent arbitration ruling in the Philippines’s favor, the architect of the Manila’s arbitration case said. Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio […]

The July 12 judgement of the tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration regarding Manila’s case against Beijing’s South China Sea claims has reshaped the geostrategic landscape in Southeast Asia. But surprisingly, Vietnam has only issued a brief statement on the verdict, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Le Hai Binh saying that “Vietnam welcomes […]

TOKYO — Chinese President Xi Jinping has continued to up the ante in the South China Sea dispute in a bid to overhaul a military whose dominant army has vehemently resisted change. “To put it simply, Xi Jinping’s major reforms of the People’s Liberation Army are a form of ‘army bashing,’” said an old cadre […]

WASHINGTON — Chinese ship and helicopter are seen during a search and rescue exercise near Qilian Yu subgroup in the Paracel Islands, which is known in China as Xisha Islands, South China Sea, July 14, 2016. Chinese ship and helicopter are seen during a search and rescue exercise near Qilian Yu subgroup in the Paracel […]

An arbitral tribunal’s ruling and the maintenance of peace and stability in the East Vietnam Sea have been highlighted in a joint consensus reached by scholars from Vietnam and other nations during an international conference held in the south-central city of Nha Trang. Delegates at the international workshop on the ‘Legal Status of Islands and […]

China reacted with predictable dismay to the arbitral ruling of the tribunal convened under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea at the request of the Philippines to resolve its disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea. China cannot be expected to change its long-standing position on historical rights or its view […]

Last month’s ruling by a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on the dispute brought by the Philippines against China has earned its place in maritime legal annals. Its precedent is likely to be felt beyond the South China Sea, but whether it will influence China is open to question. Unlike previous territorial […]

MASINLOC, ZAMBALES — Sixty-three-year-old Fred Manzano earnestly remembers how he and his fellow fishermen would hop onto Vietnamese boats those nights they navigated the waters surrounding Scarborough Shoal, a fishing ground whose resources he said were shared with their peers from another part of Asia. Sailing off the coast of Masinloc to Scarborough Shoal would […]