TAIPEI, TAIWAN – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s meeting this week with Vladimir Putin in Russia signals Moscow’s interest in playing a tricky but persuasive role in the South China Sea maritime sovereignty dispute now dominated by China and the United States, specialists in the region say. Duterte is visiting Russia October 1-5, partly to […]

  VIETNAM launched a stunning attack at Beijing as it accused a Chinese oil-surveying vessel of territorial violations, worsening the already bitter tension between the two nations over the South China Sea. Hanoi said the vessel and its coastguard escorts had widened its activities by entering Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. On Friday, Beijing’s Haiyang Dizhi […]

  Recently, US President Donald Trump, in one of his careless (which many Americans call “mindless and insane”) outbursts, said he wanted to buy Greenland, a large island-territory in Denmark. To which many Danes and their Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen riposted: “It is absurd! Greenland is not for sale!” Buying a country’s territory may indeed […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Tuesday held a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Redolent of Cold War-era mass parades, a tightly choreographed procession of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s latest hardware — including tanks, intercontinental ballistic missiles and deep-sea drones — rumbled through […]

  CANBERRA – Australia’s ban on Chinese telecoms giant Huawei’s involvement in its future 5G networks and its crackdown on foreign covert interference are testing Beijing’s efforts to project its power overseas. In its latest maneuver, China sent three scholars to spell out in interviews with Australian media and other appearances steps to mend the […]

  The Pew Research Center has released an update on its Global Attitudes Survey, which tracks opinion of China on a yearly basis. The changes show a general downward trend since last year: Canada and Sweden had some of the biggest drops in favorable opinion on China, with each country’s favorable rating on China 17 […]

  MANILA, Philippines — The growing presence of Chinese vessels in the West Philippine Sea will not stop the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) from sending patrols to the area – especially around the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) – for monitoring and law enforcement. In at least two occasions this year, Chinese coast guard […]

  New US defence official for China affairs ‘will be a stabilising force’ The US Marine Corps needs to be more agile and maritime-focused to counter China’s “long-term existential threat” to the United States, according to the head of the force. Marine Corps commandant General David Berger said the force was working to ensure it […]

  Less is heard these days about China’s massive terraforming operations in the South China Sea, which not long ago exercised neighbours as well as the United States. But that does not mean China is any less assertive in the 1.4m square-mile (3.5m square-km) sea which, on the flimsiest grounds, it claims pretty much in […]

Pressure is mounting for Australia to get involved in the South China Sea conflict. President Putin may have become the unwitting meat in a South China Sea sandwich. His cash-strapped oil company is drilling there for Vietnam. But Beijing’s getting pushy. Chinese Coast Guard vessels have been harassing the Russian-owned oil rig near Vanguard Bank, […]