In 1933, the French flexed their colonial muscles and annexed nine of the Spratly Islands. When the news spread, the fledgling and troubled Chinese republic faced a basic problem: It didn’t know where the Spratlys were. A year earlier, the French had staked their claim to the Paracel Islands as part of their colony in […]
Quần đảo Hoàng Sa or Paracel Islands include over 30 islets, sandbanks and reefs over a maritime area of around 15,000 square kilometres (5,800 sq mi) with less than 8 square kilometres (3.1 sq mi) of land. It had been under the administration of Vietnam since 15th century until ARVN forces were repelled by the PLA navy in 1974. […]
BEIJING—China, the United States, Japan and more than a dozen other Asia-Pacific countries have signed a naval agreement aimed at ensuring miscommunication between ships at sea does not escalate into conflict. The Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, which was agreed Tuesday in the eastern port city of Qingdao, would reduce the potential for “situations […]
Next Monday the senior officials from Asean and China will be meeting in Pattaya after they met last September at Suzhou, China where they kicked off official consultation on the process of formulating code of conducts (CoC) for the South China Sea. It was a turning point as China expressed the readiness to engage Asean […]
TAIPEI — The Asia-Pacific naval market is heating up, with massive quantities of new ships to boost regional navies in coming years. According to AMI International, a US-based naval analysis firm, Asia-Pacific has already surpassed Europe as the world’s second largest naval market. AMI projects the region will spend $200 billion on new ships and […]
TAIPEI — In much of Southeast Asia, budgets are smaller and ambitions more limited compared with neighbors to the north, and many countries are trying to rid themselves of much older equipment. But Singapore and Vietnam are generally better equipped and have more extensive plans. Malaysia: Shifting Plans Tight budgets are forcing Kuala Lumpur to […]
Dictatorial regimes are subjecting the democratic West to two spectacles of weakness: the seeming inability to counter Russian aggression in Ukraine and to counter China’s aggression in the South China Sea. In both cases, a failure to respond will only invite a greater challenge and the specter of war. While the Obama administration and our […]
Well, this is certainly a fun way to protest territorial aggression. This week, Vietnam and the Philippines announced that their navies will hold a party on a South China Sea island in June. Sailors from the two countries are planning on getting together to drink some beer, listen to music, play volleyball and shoot the breeze. […]
Philippine officials say they have seized a Vietnamese fishing boat in disputed waters of the South China Sea. Maritime police say the ship and its 11 crew were found with a haul of dead sharks on March 26. The crew members have been charged with violating the fisheries code. Vietnam says it is not clear […]
Walden Bellow, a representative of Akbayan (Citizens’ Action Party) in the Philippine House of Representatives, recently wrote an opinion-editorial in Foreign Policy in Focus (March 18) entitled, “A Budding Alliance: Vietnam and the Philippines Confront China.” Bello argued that, “The Philippines and Vietnam are natural allies in their common struggle against China’s drive for hegemony […]