MANILA – Super typhoon Yolanda has sent home Chinese maritime and Navy vessels at the Ayungin Reef in Palawan, while the half a dozen Philippine Marines on board a rusting and grounded World War II-era ship are safe, a source told InterAksyon.com. This effectively ends the standoff between the two countries some 100 nautical miles […]
China has painted itself into a diplomatic and legal corner regarding its claims in the South China Sea. Its infamous and ambiguous “historic” nine-dash line has been variously interpreted by rival claimants as a national boundary; a sovereignty claim to all water and land within it; and, more optimistically, as an indicator of a sovereignty […]
MANILA, Philippines – Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin is hoping that China would not intrude into areas that are within Philippine territory. Asked to comment on reports quoting a Chinese general as saying that China should take more areas from the Philippines, Gazmin said: “Huwag lang pakikialaman yung ating lugar (They should not touch our territory).” […]
That’s the so-called cabbage strategy that China is employing to stake its maritime territorial claims, and a ranking Chinese military officer says his country should take more disputed territory from the Philippines, The New York Times Magazine has reported. Quoting Maj. Gen. Zhang Zhaozhong of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the Sunday magazine cover article […]
DESPITE notable progress over the past few years, the sea-based leg of the Chinese nuclear triad will remain significantly constrained by geographical and technological factors. In the last weeks of October the Chinese media provided unprecedented coverage of the shadowy Chinese nuclear submarine force. During a slew of media reports and interviews, numerous Chinese military […]
Chinese state-run media revealed for the first time that Beijing’s nuclear submarines can attack American cities to counterbalance U.S. nuclear deterrence in the Pacific. Leading media outlets including China Central TV, the People’s Daily, the Global Times, the PLA Daily, the China Youth Daily and the Guangmin Daily ran identical, top-headlined reports about the “awesomeness” of […]
MANILA – The counsel who will represent the Philippines in its maritime arbitration case against China is a “lawyer’s lawyer.” At a forum in New York, Ambassador Libran Cabactulan said Paul Reichler has a reputation of being the preferred lawyer of sovereign states. Cabactulan is the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations. “Reichler is […]
The complaint for arbitration against the People’s Republic of China filed with the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea is mainly to defend the Philippine’s sovereign rights over its continental shelf and exclusive economic zone, and to reserve the right to request for provisional measures should these become necessary. The UN Convention on […]
MANILA, Philippines – The decision of the Arbitral Tribunal on the maritime dispute case between the Philippines and China may come “a lot faster” because of China’s refusal to participate in the proceedings, the Philippines lead counsel said in an interview with a newspaper in the United States. “Arbitrations under the Law of the Sea […]
The Philippines’ SCS strategy, meanwhile, is motivated by a perceived Chinese westward push at its expense. Despite long administering the largest features in the Spratlys, Manila’s military capabilities are limited. The occupation of Mischief Reef came about two years after the removal of the U.S. bases, and marked the point at which the much talked-about […]