OF late, much has been said by commentators and in policy circles about a “Mahathir Doctrine”. But does such a doctrine exist? If it does, how would it ensure that the South China Sea does not become a theatre of conflict? It was in mid-2018 that Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad mooted deploying small […]

  WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military said two of its warships sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Monday, a move that angered Beijing at a time of tense ties between the world’s two biggest economies. The busy waterway is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the […]

  Two US warships sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Monday, the US military said, in a move that could anger Beijing at a time of tense relations between the world’s two biggest economies. The US guided-missile destroyers Preble and Chung Hoon travelled within 12 nautical miles of Gaven […]

MANILA, May 3 (Reuters) – The Philippine Supreme Court ordered the government and security agencies on Friday to protect the environment in disputed areas of the South China Sea, responding to fishermen’s complaints of inaction against illegal Chinese activity. The top court said it had issued a writ instructing heads of key ministries, the coastguard, […]

  “Speech is the faculty by which men conceal their thoughts,” the legendary Napoleonic diplomat, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, once observed. In many ways, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s latest visit to China, his fourth in less than three years, illustrated Talleyrand’s reflections on talk. His stopover was filled with cordial rhetoric that concealed simmering tensions […]

  THE FOREIGN MINISTRY HAS CONDEMNED CHINA FOR VIOLATING VIETNAM’S SOVEREIGNTY BY IMPOSING A UNILATERAL FISHING BAN IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA. China’s agriculture ministry announced the ban on Wednesday, which it said would apply to both Chinese as well as foreign vessels, warning violators would be detained and fined by Chinese authorities. Vietnam calls […]

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte and other government officials must enforce the Supreme Court’s writ of kalikasan order directing them to protect and rehabilitate the marine environment in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said on Saturday. Failure to heed the special order, which covers three-Philippine-claimed reefs in the […]

  INDONESIA has sunk dozens of foreign boats within just hours to deter illegal fishing in its waters bordering the highly contended South China Sea, as the country continues to assert its sovereign authority over the area. As many as 51 foreign boats were sunk by Indonesia authorities as a warning to other nations, Fisheries […]

  A US Navy warship colliding with a Chinese vessel could spark the beginning of a South China Sea war, warns James Holmes, Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. Although the prospect sounds hypothetical, a similar event took place in 2001 when a Chinese fighter jet slammed unto a […]

  The Black Sea bumping incident amounted to little as diplomatic fracases go. In part that’s because the setting differed markedly from the Western Pacific today. The U.S. task force cruised along mainland Soviet shores where no one disputed Moscow’s sovereignty. This was not contested turf like China’s South China islands—ground wrested from China’s neighbors […]