According to a spokesman for Tokyo’s foreign ministry, Japan discovered the radar in late June and issued a protest on Friday through its embassy in China, urging Beijing to explain the purpose. Japan has been calling on China to halt construction of oil and gas exploration platforms in the East China Sea, accusing it of […]
An intensifying debate about China’s meteoric and historically-unparalleled rise is leading some to question its allegedly peaceful nature. Apologists insist China’s rise is benevolent, but this belief isn’t one overwhelmingly shared by the international community, argues China expert Frank Ching in a recent article on China’s pursuit of regional dominance in the Asia Pacific. Building […]
We need to fully grasp the significance of the Philippines v. China verdict. On July 12, 2016, the arbitral tribunal in the South China Sea arbitration case instituted under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) between the Philippines and China handed out its final Award. It has […]
Two centuries or more of western domination of much of the world has not only redrawn the global political maps but in many cases determined place names. If that seems arcane, it is not. It was western powers that named the South China Sea, for instance. It is a name that China is now using […]
MANILA, Philippines — After asking Beijing to act in good faith in dealing with the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte insisted on Friday night that any upcoming bilateral talks with China be based on the arbitral tribunal’s ruling on the South China Sea dispute. The president stressed this point during an hours-long meeting with Chinese Ambassador […]
“An information technology-based war at sea is sudden, cruel and short…” was how the Chinese military characterized a peer-to-peer naval conflict at sea in a public statement at the beginning of the month during PLAN naval exercises. The exercises, occurring in the East China Sea, were designed to increase the PLAN’s “assault intensity, precision, stability […]
Vietnam has discreetly fortified several of its islands in the disputed South China Sea with new mobile rocket launchers capable of striking China’s runways and military installations across the vital trade route, according to Western officials. Diplomats and military officers told Reuters that intelligence shows Hanoi has shipped the launchers from the Vietnamese mainland into […]
State-controlled media in China recently reported that the government is trying to reach an agreement with other nations on operations in the South China Sea. Such a deal could reduce tensions in the area. However, talks on the agreement have been going on for more than ten years, with little progress. The official China Daily […]
HONG KONG: There was a time when China tried hard to convince the world its rise is peaceful. That pretense was abandoned seven years ago when in the wake of Great Recession China thought its time had come to claim its place as controlling “all under heaven,” or tianxia in Asia. Like all great powers […]
China’s foreign policy is growing more assertive. For decades Beijing has made territorial claims in the East China and the South China Seas. But now Beijing is defending those claims; Chinese-flagged vessels increasingly enter disputed waters, extracting resources and harassing other claimants’ ships. In addition, China is constructing and militarizing artificial islands, and asserting maritime […]