“We must be extra careful not to have a mishap like EP-3 in the current environment,” Susan Thornton, the former acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told the South China Morning Post in an interview. “I’m not confident that we have adequate communication mechanisms in place to prevent escalation.” Thornton, […]

China should stop making noise in the South China Sea. It isn’t good for peace. It isn’t good for trade. And it isn’t good for financial markets of the region. China claims the South China Sea as its own sea. All of it, the sea surface, the resources beneath, and the airspace above. “From China’s […]

The Philippines will court Beijing for further investment when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Manila next month, temporarily sidestepping issues in the South China Sea as it hedges its bets in the ongoing trade and strategic tussles between China and the United States, observers say. While the nation’s strongman President Rodrigo Duterte has made waves […]

MELBOURNE, Australia — The U.S. Navy’s chief of naval operations has called on China to return to a previously agreed-upon code of conduct for at-sea encounters between the ships of their respective navies, stressing the need to avoid miscalculations. During a Nov. 1 teleconference with reporters based in the Asia-Pacific region, Adm. John Richardson said […]

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 3) — China said on Thursday it has begun operating weather monitoring stations in the artificial islands in the South China Sea. “These projects are designed to observe the maritime, hydrological, meteorological conditions and air qualities, and provide such services as maritime warning and forecast, tsunami alert, weather forecast, air […]

Britain is a major naval player no longer. It can only offer a support presence for other western powers in the Indo-Pacific Chinese has long historical memories of British men-of-war in the South China Seas, dating back to the humiliations of the Opium Wars. But while Beijing warns London not to get engaged in the […]