As President Trump flew home from his Hanoi summit with Kim Jong Un, Mike Pompeo peeled off and flew to Manila. And there the secretary of state made a startling declaration. Any armed attack by China on a Philippine ship or plane in the South China Sea, he told the Philippine government, will be treated […]
HANOI (Reuters) — Vietnam is seeking clarification of how a fishing boat came to sink this week in the contested South China Sea, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday, days after a local rescue agency said it was rammed by a Chinese vessel. Vietnam and China have long been embroiled in maritime disputes in the potentially […]
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte stressed that the Philippines could not afford to go to war with China, days after a US official assured him Washington would protect Manila if its forces are attacked in the disputed West Philippine (South China) Sea. Duterte said an armed conflict with China would result in a “massacre” […]
HONG KONG — Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday made use of the Philippines’ arbitration win in the West Philippine Sea against China to emphasize the courage and nationalism of 2 Otso Diretso candidates during a public campaign rally in this special administrative region controlled by Beijing. Some Filipino migrant workers who gathered along Chater […]
Philippine soldiers conduct a flag raising ceremony on Pag-asa Island in the South China Sea, May 11, 2015. AP Activists on Monday protested outside the Chinese embassy over reports of its boats chasing away Filipino fishermen from a string of sandbars close to a Philippine-occupied island in the South China Sea. The activists slammed what […]
Freedom of navigation operations conducted by the US and its allies in the South China Sea have heightened the dilemma faced by Southeast Asian nations caught between China and the United States, diplomatic sources and observers have said. Many say that the more frequent naval operations by the US and its allies in the contested […]
MANILA – The military said Tuesday it has not received reports of Filipino fishermen being prevented by Chinese vessels from fishing or landing on the sandbars around Pag-asa Island in the West Philippine Sea. On the contrary, the Armed Forces’ Western Command (WesCom) has received information that Filipino fishermen have been able to successfully fish […]
China announced Tuesday that military spending will grow at a slower pace than last year, but one analyst cautioned that it should not be interpreted to mean that military tensions with the United States will ease. At its annual parliamentary meeting, the National People’s Congress, Beijing set its 2019 defense spending at 7.5 percent higher […]
KUALA LUMPUR: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) continues to play a crucial role in maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea, including the disputed claims over the Spratlys. Maritime Institute of Malaysia (Mima) director-general First-Admiral (Rtd) Datuk Chin Yoon Chin said one of Asean’s important initiatives was the Declaration on the […]
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana Tuesday said he didn’t believe that the ambiguity or vagueness of the Philippines-United States Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) will serve as a deterrent but, in fact, could even cause confusion and chaos during a crisis. “The fact that the security environment now is so vastly different and much more complex than […]