MANILA – Bilateral talks may not be the best way to address issues in the South China Sea, said a veteran journalist who wrote a book on the landmark arbitral court ruling that granted the Philippines exclusive sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea. Marites Vitug, author of “Rock Solid: How the Philippines won its […]

An airline says a Chinese ban on tour groups visiting the Pacific nation of Palau has forced it to end its services “indefinitely.” Palau Pacific Airlines said sales plummeted since China began fining tour companies for planning trips to Taiwan allies Palau and the Vatican last year. Beijing has been accused of “dollar diplomacy” in […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China said on Thursday comments made by a senior White House official blaming Chinese President Xi Jinping for blocking progress on a deal to avert a trade war were “shocking” and “bogus” accusations. The United States and China this month slapped tariffs on $34 billion of each other’s imports in an escalating […]

  The US and its allies continue to implement a dangerous strategy to counter China’s growing influence in the Pacific. These days, it’s all but too easy to get distracted by the stories the mainstream media overhypes on a regular basis and overlook some of those more pressing stories which fall beneath the radar. When […]

China’s militarisation of the South China Sea will be a key topic at next week’s AUSMIN summit, but the government is declining to say whether Australia will play a greater role in asserting freedom of navigation through the disputed waterways. Defence Minister Marise Payne offered a spirited defence of Australia’s role in ensuring free movement […]

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte is expecting China to be fair on the South China Sea row as he expressed optimism that Filipinos would eventually view Beijing as a “good neighbor.” Duterte, who has been accused of not doing enough to assert the country’s maritime claims, said the Philippines and China have agreed to […]

The U.S. should respond more vigorously to Beijing’s violations of international law. Two years after an international tribunal rejected expansive Chinese claims to the South China Sea, Beijing is consolidating control over the area and its resources. While the U.S. defends the right to freedom of navigation, it has failed to support the rights of […]

Despite the bogey of war that President Duterte has raised every time China’s transgressions in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) is brought up, up to 8 out of 10 Filipinos still believe the government should enforce the 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague that favored the country’s claims over disputed […]

THE Yellows’ old reliable, the Social Weather Stations, is at it again, disseminating falsehoods disguised as public opinion, undertaking propaganda through its interview questions themselves. Its recent poll on our territorial dispute with China was widely reported by media, with the TV network GMA-7’s article on it headlined: “81 percent reject govt’s ‘do nothing’ policy […]

Many local and international observers have denounced Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s conduct towards China as “appeasement” after he took the view there was nothing the Philippines could do to stop China’s militarisation in the South China Sea. Duterte’s defeatist attitude, allegedly the trade-off of comprehensive engagement with China, is being put to a critical test […]