MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ position on the South China Sea dispute stands: “What is ours is ours.” Such was the pronouncement of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. after China welcomed President Rodrigo Duterte’s “standing order” to ban the Philippine Navy from joining maritime drills of other navies in the South China Sea. […]
SUMMARY President Rodrigo Duterte has banned the Philippine Navy from participating in joint maritime drills in the South China Sea, Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Monday, August 3. “President Rodrigo Duterte has a standing order to us, to me, that we should not involve ourselves in naval exercises in the […]
What is China doing? In the past few months, Beijing has exploited the U.S.’s and the world’s preoccupation with the coronavirus pandemic to assert China’s hegemony throughout Asia. It has threatened or sunk boats from Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, and Malaysia, and flown fighter jets into Taiwanese airspace eight times. It instigated a skirmish with […]
On November 8, 2017, Air Force One touched down in Beijing, marking the start of a state visit hosted by China’s president and Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping. From my first day on the job as President Trump’s national security adviser, China had been a top priority. The country figured prominently in what President Obama […]
A new US Senate report warned that the US has not done nearly enough to challenge Beijing’s position as a leading tech superpower. “Three and a half years into the Trump administration, the United States is now on the precipice of losing the future of the cyber domain to China,” said the report, published […]
The core issue of the South China Sea dispute is China’s unlawful claim to maritime areas beyond what the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) allows. Under China’s nine-dash line, five Asean coastal states—the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia—will lose large areas of their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) guaranteed to […]
Washington: Beijing has not only attempted to change facts on the ground in the South China Sea but is also seeking to gradually change the world’s mind regarding its claims in the region, a Washington-based think tank has said. Nguyen Thuy Anh, who is a research fellow at the East Sea Institute of Diplomatic Academy […]
MANILA (UPDATE) – President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he was “inutile” and “cannot do anything” against Beijing’s pursuit of territory and resources in the South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Manila. The Philippines should “just cool off” and pursue “diplomatic endeavors” to counter China’s sweeping claims to the area “unless we […]
MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said Beijing was already “in possession” of the disputed South China Sea and Washington’s return to a former naval base in the Southeast Asian country could raise the specter of war. In his fifth state of the nation address, Duterte went off script and discussed at length […]
Tensions between China and the United States have reached the most acute levels since the countries normalized diplomatic relations more than four decades ago, with the U.S. government’s ordering that China close its Houston consulate being just the latest example. In defense, trade, technology, human rights and other categories, actions and reprisals by one side […]