New personal directions Acquiring the map then became as much a personal goal as it was a business decision. “I’m in the technology business … and I endlessly admire the collaboration of skills and technology between Father Murillo Velarde and his team,” Velarde said. He added: “At 50, I think the Murillo Velarde map revealed […]
TOKYO – Group of Seven leaders will express their concern over any unilateral action to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas amid tensions between China and a number of Asian countries, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper said on Saturday. At the end of the summit in Germany, which starts on Sunday, members […]
It begins with a bit of a chuckle. “Almost a full front row here. Banner day,” chirps Marie Harf, spokeswoman for American diplomacy. Harf is presiding at the podium for what is a weekday ritual at the US State Department, a question-and-answer session for reporters that presents the official view of the world as seen […]
China released its first white paper on military strategy at the end of last month. Issued by the State Council Information Office, the white paper outlines China’s strategy of “active defense,” and highlights four critical security domains: the ocean, outer space, cyberspace, and nuclear forces. For the states of Southeast Asia, China’s outlined military strategy […]
MASINLOC, Philippines — When nations duel over reefs, rocks and islets, people are going to get hurt, and in the South China Sea dispute, that means the fishermen here who once wrested a living from the contested waters. Gunmen in a Chinese speedboat drove Macario Forones, for instance, away from a favorite spot called Scarborough […]
As China reemerges as one of the globe’s leading powers, just what type of actor it will be on the world stage has become a subject of intense debate among China watchers and the broader public. With tensions rising to what one eminent China scholar has called a “tipping point” in U.S.-China relations, the Chinese […]
Washington has made its point loud and clear in the South China Sea. But it is likely to be lost on Beijing. “There should be no mistake: the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows,” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter declared at a late May gathering of Asia Pacific’s top defense officials in Singapore. […]
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS The South China Sea is the cockpit of geopolitics in East Asia. Five countries – Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – plus Taiwan have substantial and competing territorial and maritime claims in a body of water that is both an important source of hydrocarbons and fisheries and a vital […]
China’s construction of new islands in the South China Sea has attracted a great deal of entirely predictable criticism and controversy. Surely no-one connected with this decision can be surprised at this outcome. One assumes that China’s military planners run just the same sorts of simulations and contingency exercises as their counterparts in the West. […]
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s time for countries threatened by China’s belligerent claims of sovereignty over most of the South China Sea to push back with a maritime coalition that has “enforcement capabilities,” a strategic analyst urges in a recent article in the New York-based Journal of Political Risk. With joint enforcement capabilities — backed by […]