Thank you Sir for mentioning my reaction letter to your column titled “60-40 or all-or-nothing” last September 13, 2019, in your today’s column (September 16, 2019) titled “The Problem with China is the USA). I know you have other important subject matters to take up in your column, but please allow me to make […]

  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on September 9 that the Philippines would undertake a joint deal with China to extract oil and gas from Reed Bank, a region of the South China Sea that lies in the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone. The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in 2016 against China’s […]

  A few weeks after his fifth visit to China, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte claimed that Chinese President Xi Jingping offered him a controlling stake in a proposed joint energy exploration in the West Philippine Sea if the Philippines would set aside the 2016 United Nation Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) award […]

  CHINA is building new military facilities on disputed islands in the South China Sea amid fears it is stepping put its militarisation of the strategically important waterway, a US think-tank has warned. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, part of Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said new satellite images revealed missile shelters and […]

  MANILA, Philippines — Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana was not aware of the signing of an agreement that would allow a China-backed telecommunications firm to build its communication facilities inside Philippine military camps, Malacañang said yesterday. Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said Lorenzana would look into the agreement signed last Wednesday by the Armed Forces of […]

  On Friday an American warship approached the Paracel Islands, an island chain claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea, to affirm international “freedom of navigation” in the region. The USS Wayne E. Meyer, a guided-missile destroyer, passed near the islands to contest Beijing’s sweeping claims to the seas around the archipelago, which is […]

  A Liberal backbencher has urged Australia to use its navy to curtail China’s actions in the South China Sea with tensions high between the two nations. Former international development minister, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has taken aim at Beijing for flouting a 2016 international tribunal ruling on resource exploration in other countries’ economic zones. “Beijing […]

  MANILA—The country’s former top diplomat urged the Duterte government anew to bring up the Philippines’ legal victory against China over the South China Sea as world leaders gather at the 74th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Tuesday. “The UN General Assembly is an excellent venue because all countries will listen and […]

  The latest interaction of the exchange highlighted the ongoing maritime collaboration between the two sides. Last week, Vietnam and the Philippines held another iteration of a bilateral naval exchange. The interaction underscored the ongoing maritime collaboration between the two South China Sea claimant states amid wider developments in their domestic and foreign policies. As […]

  A new large supply transport ship will help China get supplies to the islands it controls in the disputed South China Sea. China is one of six governments with territorial claims to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway. Since 2010, the others have expressed concern about Chinese efforts to build up islets, or small islands, for […]