The fourth state visit to China of President Rodrigo R. Duterte just 2 weeks ago is said to have yielded business deals worth a total of US$12.165 billion and a grant of one billion renminbi (about US$148.5 million) The Duterte administration has also said that the deals alone could generate more than 21,000 jobs. So […]
During the past week, three U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers were active in the South China Sea in two separate operations intended to support unfettered access to the region’s shipping lanes. USS William P. Lawrence (DDG-110) joined an international maritime group operating in the South China Sea for the past week, according to the service. […]
The islands of the SCS have some military relevance, but are more important as a political claim to waterways and undersea resources. Militarily, they represent a thin crust on China’s A2/AD system. Under certain conditions this crust could disrupt U.S. freedom of action, but it won’t be hard for the United States’ Air Force […]
NEW YORK: In the trend of India and the US intensifying naval links to protect maritime freedom in the Indo-Pacific region, the US Navy chief will visit India next week, four days after the Indian Navy ships concluded exercises with the US and its allies in the South China Sea. During his visit scheduled […]
TAIPEI — Japan is helping Vietnam build a defense against the larger, more militarily powerful China as Vietnam says Beijing’s forces are occupying more than their legal share of the South China Sea. Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya and his Vietnamese counterpart, Ngo Xuan Lich, met May 3 to “advance cooperation” on maritime security, […]
TWO US warships sailed through the South China Sea in a move that risks worsening tensions between the US and Beijing. Missile destroyers called Preble and Chung Hoon were guided by the US within 12 nautical miles of Gaven and Johnson Reefs in the Spratly Islands two days ago, US military confirmed. Commander Clay […]
TAIWAN’s president Tsai Ing-Wen has accused bitter rivals China of infiltrating and attempting to gain influence on the island amid South China Sea tensions. She warned China that Taiwan would deter military aggression in the Taiwan Strait when she addressed reporters a national security meeting. Her stern message came just days after the US […]
IT NOT only boggles my mind, but I am also disappointed, as all Filipinos should be, that the outspoken Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. did not chime in to support Hanoi’s opposition to Beijing’s imposition of its annual fishing moratorium in the South China Sea, which also includes the West Philippine Sea (WPS). This […]
Since early March, Chinese fishing vessels—apparently part of the country’s maritime militia force—have been operating near two Philippine-held features in the disputed Spratly Islands: Loaita Island and Loaita Cay, called Kota and Panata Islands by Filipinos. The Philippine press began to report this militia presence in early April, prompting the government to say it […]
Three years into his quiescent China policy, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte is experiencing a rude awakening in the South China Sea. The ongoing Chinese siege of the Philippines’ largest land feature in the Spratlys, Thitu Island, represents Duterte’s greatest foreign policy crisis and, ironically, the very country he has courted assiduously is at the […]