The South China Sea disputes have severely challenged Asean. At the Asean-China meeting held in Kunming (昆明) in June 2016, a senior Chinese official, sitting beside Foreign Minister Wang Yi (王毅), bluntly told Asean foreign ministers that, as far as China was concerned, Asean (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was not central to the […]

When talk of a “new Cold War” between a United States-led coterie of allies and a Beijing-Moscow axis first made the rounds about two years ago, it did not stir much interest in China. In recent weeks, however, it has become a hot topic among the Chinese. While the new interest in no way reflects […]

East Timor’s former president Xanana Gusmao says his nation will not rest until it gains it’s full sovereign rights over its seas, including resource-rich zones claimed by Australia. Speaking at the start of a United Nations Conciliation Commission hearing in The Hague on Monday, Mr Gusmao said East Timor was not seeking “favours or special […]

China’s posture and reactions towards the Philippines versus China arbitration over the South China Sea dispute unsurprisingly reflected its prior positions: Non-participation, non-recognition, non-acceptance and non-compliance. The tension and diplomatic jostling among various parties in the past few years have resulted in dramatic internationalisation of the South China Sea issue and compelled China to devote […]

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday expressed his willingness to temporarily set aside the ruling of an arbitral tribunal in settling the country’s dispute with China. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a news conference in Davao city, southern Philippines, on August 21. REUTERS/Lean Daval Jr During his speech at the National […]

Last week, reports in the Japanese press, citing diplomatic sources, noted that China’s envoy in Tokyo had sent a strong message to Japan about its involvement in the South China Sea. According to Kyodo News Agency, Amabassador Cheng Yonghua had told a Japanese official that should Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force join up with U.S.-led freedom […]

With the precarious situation unfolding in the South China Sea and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands over the past several months, the world’s attention has been drawn to China’s pivotal role of maintaining stability in the Asia-Pacific region. As China’s economic and political influence has grown in the past few decades, scholars have been analyzing and evaluating […]

Indonesia’s resource-rich Natuna Islands, located in the South China Sea northwest of Borneo, tend to be subject to periodic hype from the international media. That’s due to a couple of reasons. For one, though Indonesia is not officially a claimant in the South China Sea disputes, China’s nine-dash line overlaps with the exclusive economic zone […]

The ongoing dispute between Australia and East Timor over maritime boundaries could be resolved in a landmark case that begins in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on Monday. In April, East Timor triggered compulsory conciliation under the UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) over the disputed territory that contains […]

In January 1974, South Vietnamese forces clashed with the People’s Liberation Army Navy in the Paracel Island chain—a hot spot between China and present day Vietnam today. The two countries had established their competing claims to the islands—which the Vietnamese refer to as Hoang Sa and the Chinese call Xisha—well before they came to blows. […]