The list of countries backing Beijing’s stance in the South China Sea just keeps growing — China’s Foreign Ministry boasted last week that nearly 60 had swung behind the country’s rejection of international arbitration in a case brought by the Philippines. The numbers are questionable, and the idea of gaining the support of distant, landlocked […]

TWO US supercarrier groups have started operations in the Philippine Sea, in what the Philippine government said was a demonstration of Washington’s “ironclad commitment” as the world awaits a ruling by a United Nations tribunal on Manila’s petition to invalidate China’s so-called nine-dash line in the South China Sea. “It is a show of how […]

Soon, the Arbitral Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague will issue its decision concerning the case filed by the Philippines over its maritime entitlements in the South China Sea. Despite China opting not to formally participate in the court’s proceedings, the tribunal’s decision will be legally binding for all concerned. Once […]

The TNI-AL’s CN-235-220 maritime patrol aircraft while it was on a visit at the Singapore Airshow 2016. A similar aircraft has been deployed to the Natuna islands region for a naval drill in 2016. Source: IHS/Ridzwan Rahmat Key Points Indonesia has increased the complexity of an annual naval exercise and staging it near disputed waters […]

China says 60 countries back stance on international tribunal; Only 8 have publicly stated support BEIJING—The landlocked African kingdom of Lesotho doesn’t have an obvious stake in the South China Sea, but it is among some 60 countries that China says stand behind it as it faces potential censure by an international tribunal over its […]

Daniel R. Fung, chairman of the Hong Kong-based Asia Pacific Institute of International Law (APIIL), told Xinhua on Thursday that such an arbitration involving sovereignty issues should not be handled by PCA under the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). On June 6, 2016, the APIIL submitted an […]

China has long argued that historical documents prove the legitimacy of its claim to the South China Sea, but mainland researchers have also been looking overseas for supporting evidence. Researchers from Yunnan University and Iran’s Tehran University have studied 50 Persian maps dating from the 10th to 17th centuries and translated the script into modern […]

Two recent close encounters between US spy planes and Chinese jets spell trouble for relations between Washington and Beijing. The first, between a US EP-3 spy plane and two Chinese jets over the South China Sea (SCS) near China’s Hainan Island, was strikingly similar to the 2001 incident in the same area in which a […]

The United States has recently angered China by sending military ships and aircraft into the region including flying two B-52 bombers over the disputed islands. Stephen Conroy says the regional security challenge posed by China building artificial islands in the South China Sea needs to be directly addressed. “We believe our Defence Force should be […]

How China seeks to shape maritime law to legitimize its claims. A year and a half ago, the contested South China Sea (SCS) was awash in international intrigues and legal maneuverings. On December 7, 2014, two days after the U.S. State Department released Washington’s legal views on Beijing’s disputed nine-dash line (NDL) claim in the […]