Maritime operations, missile tests, landing exercises: the Pentagon has been sharply stepping up its efforts to counter China’s growing military power, seen increasingly as a threat. On Friday an American warship approached the Paracel Islands, an island chain claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea, to affirm international “freedom of navigation” in the […]

  MANILA, Philippines — Addressing the United Nations General Assembly next week will be an excellent opportunity for the country to seek the help of the international community in compelling China to comply with the 2016 ruling of an arbitral court on the South China Sea issue, former foreign affairs secretary Albert del Rosario said. […]

  MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte underscored the importance of having a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea during his meeting with the officials of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Senator Bong Go revealed Tuesday. “The President emphasized the need to fast track the Asean-China Code of Conduct in the […]

  Thank you Sir for mentioning my reaction letter to your column titled “60-40 or all-or-nothing” last September 13, 2019, in your today’s column (September 16, 2019) titled “The Problem with China is the USA). I know you have other important subject matters to take up in your column, but please allow me to make […]

  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on September 9 that the Philippines would undertake a joint deal with China to extract oil and gas from Reed Bank, a region of the South China Sea that lies in the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone. The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in 2016 against China’s […]

  A few weeks after his fifth visit to China, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte claimed that Chinese President Xi Jingping offered him a controlling stake in a proposed joint energy exploration in the West Philippine Sea if the Philippines would set aside the 2016 United Nation Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) award […]

  CHINA is building new military facilities on disputed islands in the South China Sea amid fears it is stepping put its militarisation of the strategically important waterway, a US think-tank has warned. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, part of Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said new satellite images revealed missile shelters and […]

  MANILA, Philippines — Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana was not aware of the signing of an agreement that would allow a China-backed telecommunications firm to build its communication facilities inside Philippine military camps, Malacañang said yesterday. Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said Lorenzana would look into the agreement signed last Wednesday by the Armed Forces of […]

  On Friday an American warship approached the Paracel Islands, an island chain claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea, to affirm international “freedom of navigation” in the region. The USS Wayne E. Meyer, a guided-missile destroyer, passed near the islands to contest Beijing’s sweeping claims to the seas around the archipelago, which is […]

  A Liberal backbencher has urged Australia to use its navy to curtail China’s actions in the South China Sea with tensions high between the two nations. Former international development minister, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has taken aim at Beijing for flouting a 2016 international tribunal ruling on resource exploration in other countries’ economic zones. “Beijing […]