Asean (the Association of South-east Asian nations) has let itself down again for buckling under external pressure and whitewashing the chairman’s statement of the 30th Asean Summit, which concluded in Manila over the weekend. Not for the first time, territorial disputes in the South China Sea were the spoiler. The Philippines’ decision to distance the […]

THE political winds have indeed changed direction. On the same day that China-friendly statement of this year’s chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, President Rodrigo Duterte, was released to media, the Philippine and Chinese flags were seen raised in a Chinese warship, Chang Chun (DDG 150) that docked in a Davao city pier. […]

MANILA — Filipino security and maritime law experts were dismayed by the Philippines’ decision to sidestep the South China Sea dispute and set aside the country’s historic legal victory in the arbitral tribunal while chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Professor Jay Batongbacal, director of the UP College of Law Institute of Maritime […]

BEIJING scored a diplomatic victory at the end of the 30th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, whose concluding document not only left out any mention of the landmark July 2016 international ruling against the basis of its exclusive claim to much of the South China Sea, but also deleted a reference to China’s […]

The Philippines and Thailand on Tuesday called on the country’s neighbors to respect freedom of navigation and over-flight in disputed waters. READ: Duterte taunts Alejano: Siya ang mauna sa Spratlys “Respect for freedom of navigation and over-flight in the South China Sea is in the interest of all countries within and outside the region,” President […]

MANILA, Philippines — A draft Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chairman statement shows that the regional bloc is gradually accepting that the South China Sea has become “China’s lake,” an analyst said. Carlyle Thayer, emeritus professor at University of New South Wales in Canberra, said that President Rodrigo Duterte, as this year’s ASEAN chair, […]

THE SUMMIT meeting of the 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Nations held this week in Manila was dominated by a non-member that was not even in the conference hall. Through President Rodrigo Duterte, the summit chair, China succeeded in throwing into the dustbin the 2016 award by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at […]

BEIJING – China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee, a top law-making body, passed a revised version of China’s surveying and mapping law intended to safeguard the security of China’s geographic information, lawmakers told reporters in Beijing. Hefty new penalties were attached to “intimidate” foreigners who carry out surveying work without permission. President Xi Jinping has […]

MANILA – China’s support for finalizing a code of conduct in the hotly contested South China Sea is generating some hope in Southeast Asia of settling disputes, but those working out the terms remain unconvinced of Beijing’s sincerity. Signing China up to a legally binding and enforceable code for the strategic waterway has long been […]

Here and abroad, the common (mis)perception is that the current government is too cozy with China and, correspondingly, relaxing its claims in the West Philippine Sea. After all, you have a chief executive, who never fails to praise Beijing as a friendly, brotherly nation, which could serve as an indispensable partner for national development in […]