1. Whose South China Sea is it, anyway? China’s claim to the South China Sea is based in history, dating back to records from the Xia and Han dynasties. China delineates its claims via the nine-dash line, which Chiang Kai Shek advanced in 1947. During China’s republican era, China surveyed, mapped and named 291 islands […]
China will continue building islands in the disputed waters of the South China Sea but a major conflict in the region over the dispute is unlikely, according to a State Department security report. “Beijing will continue to develop contested territories in the South China Sea,” says the internal report by the Overseas Security Advisory Council […]
The US secretary of defense, Ashton Carter, has said the US will continue to patrol the South China Sea and fly across the Spratly reefs occupied by China as international waters. It’s clear that the US has determined to push for the “two-state theory” in the region. The US has always tried to avoid touching […]
Taiwan and the Philippines are arguing again about fishing rights in overlapping waters of the Western Pacific. But the dispute that netted three Taiwanese boats in the 250-kilometer-wide Luzon Strait last month will stop short of a flare-up like that of two years ago when Manila’s coast guard shot a Taiwanese fisherman to death at […]
ELEANOR HALL: Scientists from the United States and the Philippines have accused the Chinese Government of destroying coral reefs and fishing grounds with its reclamation program in the South China Sea. Beijing has intensified its dredging and construction on the disputed Spratly Islands in what many see as a challenge to US power in the […]
Ever since last year when satellite imagery confirmed that China was constructing artificial islands in the South China Sea, journalists, security specialists and even government officials uncritically have adopted terminology that obfuscates rather than clarifies the issues at stake. No term has been so abused as “land reclamation” both in its everyday usage and legal […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]