On Tuesday, Philippine President Benigno Aquino made several provocative comments that will have regional neighbors cheering and jeering in turn. While speaking at the presidential palace in the capital of Manila to Japanese reporters, Aquino outlined his desire to work more closely with Japan on matters of security, shortly before accusing China of complicating an […]
Vietnam is becoming a proxy against China in any future possible confrontation in the South China Sea or South Asia as a whole. On Oct. 28 India announced that it would sell naval vessels to Vietnam in exchange for an energy-exploration deal. These vessels would arrive at a time of rising tension between Vietnam and […]
In the course of the dispute over the Spratly Islands, China’s extensive reclamation works do not necessarily act as a ticket to win sovereignty claims in accordance with the maritime provisions of international law. A Eurasia Review analysis cited China’s ongoing infrastructure projects on several of the seven reefs it occupies in Spratly. But according […]
On February 17, 2014, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued the 372-page “Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” detailing the atrocities suffered by the North Korean people, raising allegations of Pyongyang’s crimes against humanity, and proposing […]
The Spratly Islands are basically mounds of sand in the middle of the South China Sea, some of them barely tall enough to reach above the water. But China is hell-bent on making them inhabitable, even drawing up plans for floating energy and water plants. It has nothing to do with the islands themselves and […]
Satellite images captured by Taiwan indicate that Vietnam is pushing for land reclamation much harder than China in the disputed South China Sea, the Christian Science Monitor reported on Sept. 23. Wang Cheng-gi from the Satellite Surveying Center of the Department of Land Administration under Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior, who is in charge of […]
UNITED NATIONS – “Can international law be a law when it can be ignored or broken by states without any consequence?” Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations Libran Cabactulan raised this question as he hosted a discussion at the UN on a topic closely related to the Philippines’ historic arbitration case against China on the […]