The No. 9 Design & Research Institute of China State Shipbuilding Corporation recently displayed on its official website its proposed design of an artificial island to be built on a reef in the South China Sea. It aims at providing a reserve of designs for an artificial island China may build there. On the website, […]
WHILE the United States, with the pivot to Asia, is testing China’s capability to handle diplomatic challenges in ties with its neighbourhood, it is carrying out the strategy increasingly at the expense of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by driving wider the rifts among members of the regional bloc. Should the ASEAN nations […]
IN agreeing to a strategic partnership with Vietnam, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin admitted that the Philippines is interested in enhanced intelligence exchange and inter-operability with Hanoi, but stressed that such an arrangement is not necessarily aimed at any third country. “On the defense front, our objective is closer information sharing and inter-operability in the region,” […]
The United States is in the process of building a new “security architecture” among its allies in the Asia-Pacific in response to China’s increasingly aggressive moves in the disputed South China Sea. The security alliance will consist of the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia and Japan, according to unnamed official sources in the Philippine government. Press reports […]
VietNamNet: China’s unruly actions have spurred domestic and international public opinion to believe that it is time for us to sue China in the international court of justice. What is your thought about this? Ngo Huu Phuoc: I do not oppose this plan. However, I believe that in the current situation, as well as based […]
(Reuters) – Japan and China on Sunday accused each other’s air forces of dangerous behavior over the East China Sea, with Japan saying Chinese aircraft had come within a few dozen meters of its warplanes. Japan’s defense minister accused Beijing of going “over the top” in its approach to disputed territory. China’s defense ministry said […]
Adrien Morin contends that China’s foreign policy is consistently non-assertive toward Western power, basing this on its policy throughout the Syrian crises. While Mr. Morin’s thesis on consistency may find support in China’s position on non-interventionism in Syria, it falls apart in his attempted extrapolation to the South China Sea. Despite any perception within China […]
As China brings in a $1 billion oil exploration rig, parking it in a disputed region of the South China Sea and unleashing a deadly anti-China protest in Vietnam, nearby Southeast Asian neighbors appear relatively mute and impotent. Burma (also known as Myanmar), which hosted the meeting of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, […]
Ngo Huu Phuoc: China’s behavior has violated the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the basic principles of international law on friendly relations between countries that are prescribed in the UN Charter and codified in the Declaration of the UN General Assembly, dated 24/10/1970. Under the provisions of the UNCLOS, […]
MANILA–In many ways, the towns on the atolls of the South China Sea are just like communities elsewhere: They have houses, post offices, schools, health clinics, and citizens who use them. But the Chinese, Philippine and Vietnamese settlements are unusual in at least one way: They were all planted on once-empty slivers of land to […]