One reason the world pays so much attention to a white-knuckle struggle over East Asia’s seas and islands is that the watery clashes resemble the bad old days of America’s Wild West. Brute force competes with the law. Crude power tries to trump principles applicable to all. A grand battle is underway to create a […]
HANOI — Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines could try going to an international court in a coordinated push against China, Trinh Hoa Binh of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences argued in a recent interview. Tensions between Vietnam and its huge neighbor to the north have run high since Beijing planted an oil rig in […]
Since May 1, China has unilaterally deployed its HD-981 rig and many vessels, including military ships, in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf. This action violates Vietnam’s sovereign rights and its jurisdiction over the EEZ of 200 nautical miles and continental shelf. More dangerously, China escalated tensions when its ships, under the support […]
Security tensions in the South China Sea have flared up again when Vietnam’s naval vessels collided with Chinese ships on Wednesday, May 7, in a serious attempt of Hanoi to prevent Beijing from stationing a US$1-billion oil rig, HD-981, in the Northwest Triton Island of the Paracels. For Vietnam, the location of China’s oil rig […]
Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio has once again publicly spoken about the Philippines’ ongoing battle over disputed territories — an obvious reference to the country’s maritime spat with China over the West Philippine Sea. In a speech delivered Monday before newly-sworn lawyers, Carpio said they should give their “undivided loyalty and allegiance” to the […]
President Benigno Aquino III will be pushing for the early conclusion of the drafting of the set of rules meant to avoid conflict in the South China Sea at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Myanmar. “I am sure the President will be bringing up this agenda item. I think he will […]
China’s deepwater drilling rig in the South China Sea, which Vietnam considers is its territorial water, has been condemned as illegal by the latter and ordered to be removed. The USD 1 billion rig is owned by China’s state-run CNOOC oil company and this country claims almost the entire oil and gas rich South China […]
Media attention during Barack Obama’s four-nation Asian trip focused, understandably perhaps, on the three countries that are US allies – Japan, South Korea and the Philippines – and, in particular, on developments with military significance, such as the American president’s assurance that the US-Japan security treaty covered the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, islands claimed by China. […]
MANILA – President Benigno Aquino summarized the Philippines’ case against China when he called some of the disputed areas in the West Philippine Sea as mere “rocks” and not islands. Aquino, during his press briefing at the Palace on Monday with his US counterpart, Barack Obama, described the disputed areas as a “few rocks that […]
In his April 14 Forbes Magazine column, former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew seems to justify China’s territorial expansionism in the South China Sea. “Much more is at stake than rocks and resources. China sees the South China Sea as one of its key interests. A rising China is asserting its position by claiming […]