China has accelerated construction and enhanced its military presence on South China Sea islands and shoals over the past year as territorial tensions with neighboring countries are subsiding. China’s construction projects in the South China Sea region covered about 290,000 square meters in 2017, including new facilities for underground storage, administrative building and […]
Beijing is relentless in its pursuit of territory that it feels once was a part of the Middle Kingdom. A lack of coordination in resisting this irredentist activity is having consequences, for ignoring it merely delays – and worsens – the problem. For example, if the law-abiding nations of the world had taken […]
BEIJING: China’s large-scale land reclamation around disputed reefs and shoals in the South China Sea is “moving ahead steadily”, state media has reported, and is on track to use giant “island-builders” to transform even more of the region. Beijing claims nearly all of the sea and has been turning reefs in the […]
MANILA, Philippines — China intends to use its “magical island maker” to expand the size of its reclaimed islands in the South China Sea following years of massive reclamations and despite continuing protests from neighboring countries. “The size of some South China Sea Islands will be further expanded in the future with more dredging […]
On the left, the relatively healthy but overfished reef flat surrounding Thitu Island; on the right, a reef flat approximately 1.5 nautical miles away destroyed by Chinese clam harvesters. Both photos dated February 2016, courtesy of John McManus. Total fish stocks in the South China Sea have been depleted by 70-95 percent since the […]
As defined by the US’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, La Niña is “a natural ocean-atmospheric phenomenon marked by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean near the equator.” That lends itself to a colder winter in China and by extension to higher energy use for heating. China’s changing energy mix can […]
TAIPEI — China is widely forecast to bolster its military power next year in the South China Sea to resist Japan, India and the United States, as well as the Asian states that dispute Beijing’s maritime claims. Scholars believe China will eventually enhance radar surveillance and let fighter jets use tiny islets for […]
BEIJING, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) — Chinese air force planes Monday flew through Tsushima Strait for the first time and conducted drills in international airspace over the Sea of Japan, an air force spokesperson said. The drills, involving bombers, fighters, reconnaissance planes and other aircraft, were aimed to examine the high-sea combat ability of […]
As China continues to transform disputed territory in the South China Sea into features capable of sustaining air and naval bases, Vietnam is also upgrading areas it occupies. Images taken by DigitalGlobe satellites in September show new facilities including a possible dry dock on West London Reef in the Spratly Island chain, […]
When completed, the satellite network would be able to monitor the South China Sea around the clock and analyse every object in the waters in detail, including the structure of vessels, Hainan Daily quoted Li Xiaoming, from the Sanya Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, as saying. The plan surfaced on Friday […]