China has hit back at New Zealand over an official defence strategy paper, which named it as a threat. Defence Minister Ron Mark’s rebooted Strategic Defence Policy Statement, released on Friday, explicitly states the threat it believes China poses to the international community. Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern have often been […]
MANILA – If care is taken to preserve it, there is still hope that an international court’s 2016 ruling in a case filed by the Philippines against China over their maritime disputes in the South China Sea can yield fruit, advocates of Manila’s sovereign rights in sea said Thursday. READ: Arbitral court’s ruling on Philippines […]
Let’s attempt to clear up the smoke on the China-Philippine conflict over territorial waters and atolls in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) by adding more conflicting arguments because it is, ironically, only when we juxtapose opposing sides of an issue that we see the truth. No other side but our side. The conflict […]
Two years after arbitration win, Philippine policy slammed as soft on Beijing MANILA — Two years after the Philippines won a major legal victory against China at The Hague, President Rodrigo Duterte is coming under pressure to wield the ruling in its South China Sea disputes and to discard what many see as a weak-kneed […]
MANILA – Former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile on Friday refused to grade the performance of President Rodrigo Duterte but agreed with most of his policies, specifically on crime, on China, and the economy. Speaking to reporters after his pre-trial at the Sandiganbayan, Enrile said he agrees with the policy of President Duterte on being friendly […]
Russia and China are rigorously improving strategic ties to be better prepared for the challenges of today’s world, as the US resorts to deception, hybrid wars, and controlled chaos, the Russian defense minister said. In a frank interview with Italian magazine Il Giornale, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu explained Russia’s strategy of keeping friends and deterring […]
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea on Thursday warned that an escalating trade dispute between the United States and China could hit its exports of “intermediary goods” used in home appliances, computers and communications devices. South Korea’s trade ministry said in a statement that the trade war could be “prolonged and spread,” adding that it would […]
GENEVA (Reuters) – A “reckoning” over China’s unfair trade policies is urgent and is too big for the World Trade Organization to handle, U.S. ambassador Dennis Shea told a WTO meeting on Wednesday. Washington has raised the stakes in its trade dispute with Beijing, threatening 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods. In […]
The July 12, 2016 Award of the Arbitral Tribunal was a landmark ruling for three reasons. First, the Arbitral Tribunal ruled that China’s so-called historic nine-dashed line cannot serve as legal basis to claim any part of the waters or resources of the South China Sea. China, like all other coastal states in the South China Sea, cannot claim maritime zones beyond what UNCLOS allows, that is, not exceeding 350 NM from the coastline. The result is that about 25 percent of the South China Sea are high seas, and all around the high seas are the exclusive economic zones of the adjacent coastal states. Of course, in the high seas and exclusive economic zones there is freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight as recognized under customary international law and UNCLOS.
Sailors prepare FA-18 Hornet fighter jets for take off during a routine training aboard the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the South China Sea on April 10, 2018. (File photo from AFP) President Rodrigo Duterte may have chosen to set aside an international tribunal ruling that invalidated China’s claim to nearly all of the […]