One month ago, the Center for Strategic and International Studies launched a new web-based program, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. The premise of this project will be familiar to many of you: maritime competition in Asia has been steadily increasing in recent years, and doing so in an environment of informational opacity. Maritime geography makes it […]
As I predicted a while back, the United States has quietly ditched its old, underperforming pretext for confrontation in the South China Sea and is sidestepping into a new justification. I do not care deeply about America’s stake in the South China Sea so I have little interest in slogging through recent American & Chinese contributions to […]
MANILA, Philippines – In the so-called David versus Goliath disputes in the South China Sea, China holds the sticks and carrots. From gunboat to money diplomacy, it seizes the upper hand over its smaller neighbors. Yet the Philippines is slinging its own stone: international law. How far will this shot go? The Philippines made history […]
Vietnam sided with Philippine government saying that the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal has jurisdiction on settling maritime disputes base on U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. “To protect its legal rights and interests in the East Sea which may be affected in the South China Sea Arbitration case, Vietnam has expressed its position […]
China has dismissed Vietnam’s sovereignty claim for the Nansha and Xisha islands in the South China Sea, saying it is “illegal and invalid” and “China will never accept such claim.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei made the comment on late Thursday after Vietnam’s foreign ministry said Vietnam held sovereignty over the Nansha and Xisha islands […]
They have names like Pigeon Reef, West Sand, Taisho-To, and Scarborough Shoal. Most are no more than outcrops of rock poking out of the sea. Most have never been inhabited. Few have any direct economic value. If not for the perceived fish and oil wealth in the waters around them, the spat over these specks […]
MANILA, Philippines – Vietnam submitted its position on the Philippines’ historic arbitration case against China, the first time another South China Sea claimant formally used legal proceedings to challenge China’s expansive sea claims. Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the announcement on Thursday, December 11, in response to questions on its stand about China’s position […]
Tensions over the South China Sea were reignited after Vietnam said it had submitted its stance on the dispute to the international arbitration tribunal reviewing the Philippines’ challenge against China’s claims. Vietnam has asked the arbitration court to take into account its legal rights and interests in the disputed sea region, spokesman Le Hai Binh, […]
‘China will work with other countries to further promote a harmonious maritime order.’ Even after years of studying the maritime tensions on China’s periphery, I had to check that I had not misread the 9 December Xinhua dispatch quoting Liu Jieyi, China’s Ambassador to the UN. These reassuring words come on the heels of a […]
In all of the struggles for territory in history, none has been quite as ambitious or unusual as a country trying to steal a whole ocean. But that is what China is actively doing in the ocean south of the mainland: the South China Sea. Bit by bit, it is establishing hegemony over this most […]