New Delhi, Aug. 6: Two statements by junior foreign minister V.K. Singh last week backing Manila over Beijing in a major maritime dispute are threatening to cloud a visit by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, adding to a series of spats already pockmarking India’s relationship with its largest neighbour. India has repeatedly advocated diplomacy and […]

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague ruling that has demolished China’s expansive historical claims in South China Sea and pointed out that Beijing has no entitlement to an economic zone within 200 miles of Mischief and Thomas reefs, is a landmark judgement that upholds a rule-based international maritime order enshrined in the […]

BEIJING: China, which is developing two more aircraft carriers, is building up a naval-aviation division to safeguard the country’s maritime interests amid escalating tensions over the disputed South China Sea. China commissioned its first aircraft carrier Liaoning in September 2012 and launched a specially designed J-15 fighter jets to operate from its deck. Although it’s […]

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Local scholars said on Saturday that the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague was quite careful in dealing with the status of Taiwan because the court had indicated that “Taiwan is not completely part of China” but a special political entity, although the court had used the term ‘Taiwan Authority of […]

Over the decades, China scholars in the United States, Taiwan and China itself have spilled rivers of ink parsing official and unofficial statements from the three countries to assess the direction of cross-Strait relations. Year after year, they compare and contrast every utterance and every article to discern nuance, shaded meanings, perceptible shifts in position, […]

Perhaps the most significant portion of the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s July 12 500-page unanimous ruling on the South China Sea is the decision on Mischief Reef. According to the ruling, the reef and everything on it legally belongs to the Philippines. This is in spite of China’s reclamation of approximately 5,580,000 square meters of […]

The remark by Ms Fu Ying, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, National People’s Congress of China, that all the reefs and shoals put together amount to only a small percentage of the South China Sea illustrates why there is growing unease with China’s intentions across much of the Indo-Pacific region (“Disorder or the reconstruction […]

Hackers have used targeted malware to steal data from some of the governments and private sector organisations involved in the dispute over territory and sovereignty in the South China Sea. Cybersecurity company F-Secure Labs uncovered the malware, dubbed NanHaiShu by researchers, which it said targeted the Philippines Department of Justice, a major international law firm […]

A threat issued this week by China to jail foreign fishermen who enter disputed areas of the South China Sea prompted the head of an influential Vietnamese fishing organization on Thursday to dismiss the move and assert that fishermen will continue to work in those waters, with his country taking measures against China if necessary. […]

After an international tribunal rebuked China’s claim to the South China Sea, the Chinese government launched a website Wednesday, complete with historical maps, defending its position. The tribunal, appointed by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, rendered its verdict on July 12, negating China’s nine-dash-line claims over the South China Sea. The decision upheld claims […]