“We need to verify the location of where these dredging activities are and if any new similar activities have been conducted,” Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. said in a press briefing on Thursday. “If verified, these could be used as additional information that can be included in our petition before the Arbitral Tribunal of […]
Island-building isn’t new. San Francisco built Treasure Island in the 1930s for the Golden Gate International Exposition. Miami’s exclusive Star Island was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers back in the 1920s. And of course there are more recent examples, such as Dubai’s infamous Palm Islands. Chinese development at the newly reclaimed Fiery Cross […]
China’s construction of oil rigs and artificial islands in the East Sea were illegal, an international seminar was told in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday. About two hundred Vietnamese and foreign experts from international institutes and universities in the United States, Russia, Japan and the Philippines attended the function. They said China’s actions had […]
The Global International Waters Assessment by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2005 identified the South China Sea as a large marine ecosystem with more than 2,500 species of marine fishes and 500 species of reef-building corals. The study also found enormously diverse platform reefs and atolls existing, most notably in the Spratly Islands, which […]
The increasingly loud accusations and declarations from Beijing and Washington over China’s ambitions to reclaim a string of small islands, coral reefs and lagoons show no signs of ending. However, given the number of international stakeholders in the region, the real promise of science for diplomacy may now be at hand in this complex geopolitical […]
Since 2014 China has been constructing features atop seven coral reefs in the disputed Spratly/Nansha Islands of the South China Sea by dredging sand and coral from existing coral reefs. At last count China’s new features total more than 2,000 acres.[1] This activity has produced much commentary.[2] However, none of the commentary addresses all of […]
The escalating territorial dispute in the South China Sea is as much an ecological crisis as it is a geopolitical one. Dredging, land reclamation and the construction of artificial islands could be swamping centuries old reefs in sediment, endangering ecosystems that play a key role in maintaining fish stocks throughout the region. According to leading […]
MANILA/SINGAPORE – On a clear night, the Filipinos who live on Pagasa Island — a speck in the vast South China Sea — can see the floodlights from giant Chinese cranes working around the clock, dredging sand to build up a nearby reef. Life on the atoll with its clutch of buildings was for decades […]
In the face of growing international condemnation for its building artificial islands in the South China Sea from which to project its military power in the region, China appears to have reduced itself into an island. From world leaders and international organizations to opinion writers around the world, China has drawn criticism for its massive […]
AFTER months of political tensions and maritime squabbles, China said Wednesday that it has finally completed its land reclamation activities in some areas of the resource-rich West Philippine Sea (South China Sea). During the regular press briefing at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, its spokesman Hua Chunying revealed that “China’s construction on some stationed islands and […]