MANILA, Philippines — China warned the United States and other nations against stirring up trouble in the “calm” South China Sea. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Wednesday said the presence of the US and other “non-regional forces” could stir up the South China Sea, which he said is already calm. Lu made […]

  As the West considers the threat posed by China’s naval ambitions, there is a natural tendency to place overarching attention on the South China Sea. This is understandable: Consolidating it would provide Beijing with a huge windfall of oil and natural gas, and a potential chokehold over up to 40 percent of the world’s […]

  A CHINESE general gave a preview way back in 2013 of how their People’s Liberation Army deploys a swarm of vessels around disputed islands in the South China Sea in what he called a “cabbage strategy” to take full control. We were then surprised that the Chinese swarming of Pagasa island off Palawan was […]

  To improve the military’s ability to protect the Party from losing power, the CCP has been generous in providing the PLA with an increased budget of 10 percent per year from 2000 to 2016. Overall the DIA report is an unclassified regurgitation of open source material, but as a Taiwan military official said after […]

  MANILA, Philippines —Commenting on the presence of Chinese ships near a Philippine-occupied feature in the West Philippine Sea, pro-Duterte blogger Sass Rogando Sasot argued in a series of social media posts on Tuesday that waters around Pag-asa island in the Spratlys “remain international waters.” “As long as the sovereignty issue over the Spratlys hasn’t […]

  Protesters in Manila descended on the Chinese embassy in Manila to oppose what they describe as Beijing’s growing influence in the country. The protest followed the sighting of hundreds of Chinese vessels sailing close to Thitu Island, an area in the South China Sea claimed by Manila. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told China to […]

  Vietnam has been stealthily militarising disputed islets, reefs and sandbanks, adding to tensions in the strategically important South China Sea. Satellite photographs show that it is not only China that has been at work. While the focus of international criticism has been directed against China, its regional rival, Vietnam, is also taking part in […]

The US sent a fighter-jet-carrying warship to join drills near the disputed Scarborough Shoal for the first time, sending a pointed message to China as tensions simmer over territorial claims in the region. The USS Wasp — an amphibious assault ship outfitted last year with F-35B jets — joined the annual Exercise Balikatan with the […]

BY ANTONIO CONTRERAS “THE China Syndrome” is a 1979 movie which starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas. The title refers to a fictional nuclear plant meltdown, where radioactive materials melted through their compartments deep into the earth hitting the groundwater and seriously contaminating the surrounding area, with intensity that was exaggerated to have […]

MANILA, Philippines — The West Philippine Sea is “ours” and China “took it,” Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin Jr. said on Wednesday. “The stand is that it is ours. And they took it. World’s highest court ruled that. Period,” Locsin tweeted in response to a Twitter user who asked for the Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) […]