The U.S. finds China’s efforts to build military facilities on reclaimed South China Sea islands “troubling” and plans to raise the issue during annual talks in Washington this month, a top State Department official said. Daniel Russel, assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was responding to a Chinese statement Tuesday, […]
Satellite imagery from June 5, 2015 shows China has expanded its land fill of Subi Reef by 74 percent in less than two months, adding an average of eight acres of surface per day on that reef alone. Mischief Reef, larger than Subi, is now more than half filled in, according to a June 9, […]
“China has effectively put up its own Great Wall of the Sea.” China’s statement on Tuesday that it would soon start building infrastructure on its artificial islands in the South China Sea drew condemnation from the Philippines, Japan and the United States on Wednesday. Manila said it was considering asking the United Nations arbitral tribunal […]
“[I]f the United States insists on publicly denying and routinely penetrating the 12-nm lines, China simply cannot bear the costs of inaction.” U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently proposed more-assertive military options for the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (SCS). The new policy would dispatch U.S. naval ships to within 12 nautical miles […]
WASHINGTON — The United States is troubled by China’s plans to keep building on artificial islands in the South China Sea, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia said Thursday. Assistant Secretary of State Danny Russel told journalists that the prospect of China militarizing those maritime outposts runs counter to the goal of reducing regional […]
Actually, that was a title of a piece I wrote in July 2010, before island-building, before the Senkaku crises, before the rare earths brouhaha, even before Hillary Clinton declared that the US had a “national interest” in freedom of navigation in the South China Sea at the 2010 ASEAN foreign ministers’ conference in Hanoi and formally […]
The Philippine government will continue drawing global attention to the political and environmental impact of Chinese reclamation activities in disputed territories in the West Philippine Sea. During a press briefing on Wednesday, presidential spokesman Sec. Edwin Lacierda said this is the administration’s plan while the United Nations arbitration tribunal hears the Philippines’ case questioning Beijing’s […]
MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines urged China on Wednesday, June 17, to “desist” from its reclamation activities in the disputed West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) after Beijing said it is set to finish its island building. “We reiterate our serious concern over China’s massive reclamation activities and planned construction of facilities in those features,” […]
A statement released by China’s foreign ministry says that China will cease building additional islands, though it plans to complete existing land reclamation efforts. Beijing appears to be heeding the warnings from Defense Secretary Ash Carter to cease land reclamation, although it intends to finish pre-existing work in the Spratly Islands first. When finished, China […]
Beijing/Washington: China will soon complete some of its land reclamation on the Spratly Islands in the disputed South China Sea, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, indicating that Beijing is close to setting up new outposts in the maritime heart of south-east Asia. The United States, which has called for a halt in China’s island […]