US President-elect Joe Biden in phone calls with the leaders of Australia, Japan and South Korea on Thursday emphasised on maintaining a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. According to foreign media reports, Joe Biden declared that US security guarantees apply to Japan’s administration of the disputed Senkaku Islands, in the President-elect’s first significant foreign policy […]

MANILA – The 11th hour appointment of a group of hardline Donald Trump loyalists to top Pentagon positions has raised the prospect of an escalation of tensions in the South China Sea in the weeks ahead. Trump’s perfunctory dismissal this week of Defense Secretary Mark Esper has raised concerns in some quarters of a Trump […]

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Thursday expressed its hope for an “effective and substantive” code of conduct for all activities in the South China Sea. Addressing the opening ceremony of the 37th ASEAN Summit as the current chair, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc reaffirmed the bloc’s determination to maintain “peace, stability, […]

The day after the U.S. presidential elections, on November 4 the U.S. government announced its decision to sell MQ-9B (Sea Guardian) drones to Taiwan. As Taiwan’s ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) is frequently intruded by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) nautical and airborne vehicles, the drones, when acquired, will provide the country with a counterweight […]

  PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte once again invoked the country’s arbitral victory against China over the South China Sea, saying no country, no matter how powerful, should not ignore the ruling. In his speech before the plenary session of the 37th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit on Thursday, Duterte said the arbitral award was […]

The United States under President-elect Joe Biden is expected to show heightened interest over the South China Sea, former presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Monday. “There will be a heightened emphasis on South China Sea towards freedom of navigation,” Lacierda said during an interview on CNN Philippines. Lacierda said that “30 percent of the world’s […]

  The Philippines will back China’s candidate to fill one of the five seats at the International Court of Justice that will become vacant next year, according to presidential spokesman Harry Roque. Roque says the country will support China because of the Philippines’ “very close” ties with Beijing. Since coming to power in 2016, President […]

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Monday said Philippine air surveillance in the West Philippine (South China) Sea had a 30-percent increase in 2019. In his speech during the virtual celebration of the Defense department’s 81st anniversary, Lorenzana attributed the increase to the military’s acquisition of new equipment. Without going into details, he said the military’s […]

MANILA (UPDATE) – Analysts do not expect a change in US policy on the South China Sea even as the world’s superpower has elected a new leader in Democrat Joe Biden for the next four years. Freedom of navigation operations are expected to continue in the waters being claimed almost entirely by China, as well […]

TheUnited Stateswill take a far more civil and consensus-driven approach to international relations underJoe Biden’s presidency, but while the “eccentric” and “destabilising” anti-China rhetoric will be gone, analysts say, his administration is likely to be as tough as President Donald Trump’s on issues such as theSouth China Sea. “Given Biden’s background [as a veteran lawmaker], […]