Foreign ministers from China and the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations gather today in Kunming, in south-west China. Their minds, as ever, will be on the nerve-jangling South China Sea, where China continues to turn disputed features into man-made islands. The meeting follows a rare public row: China claimed a “consensus” with three of […]

Expect Beijing to lash out if a ruling on South China Sea claims goes against it SHANGHAI—In the countdown to a legal verdict on China’s sweeping claims to the South China Sea, an increasingly frantic Beijing is mobilizing a diplomatic offensive around three core arguments: that the U.N.-backed tribunal has no legal right to hear […]

The South China Sea is a center of territorial disputes involving half a dozen governments. China’s construction activities and military patrols in the region have drawn criticism, but there’s also a growing chorus of protests from another group: environmentalists. HPR’s Bill Dorman has more in today’s Asia Minute. Listen Listening…1:25 There’s no doubt the South […]

The ongoing conflict and tensions in the South China Sea (SCS) are showing no signs of ending. Rather, a series of incidents on May 25 led the G7 to express concern over China’s assertiveness in the East and South China Sea where Beijing has disputes with Japan, Taiwan and several South-East Asian nations. The announcement […]

France has thrown its hat into the acrimonious South China Sea debate, calling for more European naval patrols in a contested waterway that is at the center of a growing dispute between China and the United States and its Asian allies. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, speaking Sunday at a three-day security conference in […]

An international conference on European and Asian maritime security and development kicked off on Thursday in the northern Vietnamese province of Quang Ninh, focusing on disputes and China’s actions in the East Vietnam Sea. The two-day high-level workshop is organized by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and the European Union Delegation to Vietnam in Ha […]

An international tribunal convening in the Hague is expected to make a ruling in coming weeks on a case brought by the Philippines in 2013 over China’s island-building in large parts of the sea – one of the world’s trade routes. The construction of 3000 acres of artificial islands in the sea by China has […]

South China Sea claimants are awaiting a decision by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in an arbitration case on the legality of the Chinese government’s claims. But regardless of how the UN tribunal decides, South China Sea disputes won’t go away anytime soon. Military activity in the South China Sea is […]

The Beijing-based Global Times would like to know if Washington is going to keep up its provocative actions in the South China Sea . The newspaper, which often expresses the views of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), posed the question at the end of an editorial on Wednesday, offering its take on the eighth China-US […]

Singapore – “The vast Pacific Ocean has enough space for two large countries like the United States and China,” claimed Chinese President Xi Jinping during his intimate retreat in Sunnylands with his American counterpart, Barack Obama, back in 2013. Optimistic about a new era of cooperation, Xi espoused a “new model of great power relations.” […]