MANILA, Philippines – Despite earlier asserting he wanted the military deal scrapped, President Rodrigo Duterte decided to suspend his earlier decision to terminate the Philippines’ Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States due to rising tensions in the South China Sea during the pandemic. According to Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr, who along with […]

According to the state-owned Global Times, the report by China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies details US security policy, military presence and deployment. It warns of a pending Cold War-esque conflict between China and the US. The Global Times report US warships have repeatedly trespassed into Chinese territorial waters around the Xisha and […]

  The U.S. Navy is preparing for expansive two-carrier attacks in the Pacific by connecting the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Groups for combined operations near the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. The exercise, which is, of course, not planning any attacks or specific war moves, is intended to ensure […]

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — China sent a survey vessel through waters claimed by its maritime sovereignty rival Vietnam this month to warn Hanoi against starting new energy exploration projects and filing any motions in an international court, observers say. Tracking tools showed China’s 105-meter-long, 58-person survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 4 moving toward Vietnamese waters on June […]

“She said, ‘You don’t understand what I said.’ I said, ‘No, no, no, you’re wrong. When I was a boy, everything was right.’ … And she’s making me feel like I’ve never been born.” This is a famous hook line in a song from The Beatles album “Revolver,” released in 1966. I was 13 years […]

  Australia must urgently strengthen its partnership with the United States, Japan and other regional partners to resist China’s gradual domination in the Indo-Pacific, a leading researcher has warned. The superpower has become increasingly brazen in its assumption of power throughout the region, according to the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. The top […]

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — For the seventh time in less than two weeks, a Chinese fighter jet approached Taiwan’s airspace on Sunday (June 21) in what could be part of a new deployment in the South China Sea (SCS) or combat training originating from deep within China. At noon on Sunday, a People’s Liberation Army […]

The Chinese People‘s Liberation Army (PLA) on Thursday expelled a US warship that trespassed into Chinese territorial waters off the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea, and the US operation amid the COVID-19 pandemic showed the US is the source that sabotages peace and stability in the South China Sea, a Chinese military spokesperson […]

China and Indonesia agree on at least one issue about the Natuna Islands, part of the larger Raiu archipelago, located in disputed waters that Indonesia has renamed the North Natuna Sea. On May 26, Indonesia said in a diplomatic note it is not a party to the territorial dispute in the South China Sea. Beijing […]

Japanese forces chased a Chinese submarine out of Japanese waters on Thursday. Officials in Tokyo characterized the sub’s infiltration as part of China’s escalating land-grab across the western Pacific. A Japanese “destroyer”—actually, the helicopter-carrier Kaga—along with a P-1 patrol plane reportedly detected the submarine within 24 miles of Amami-Oshima island, near Okinawa in southern Japan. […]