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BEIJING - China's Foreign Ministry on Sunday voiced strong opposition to a Pentagon report on China's military development and security, calling on the US to have "an objective and rational understanding" of China's military strength. "We urge the US to abandon its Cold War mindset, take off its colored glasses, and have an objective and rational understanding of China's military development," spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, referring to a report released on Saturday by US Department of Defense. She called on the US to stop issuing such biased report and refrain from any words and deeds that undermine bilateral relations and...

China expected to send 'clear message' over South China Sea Updated: 2015-05-15 20:37 By MO JINGXI Observers said China should send a clear message over its stance on the South China Sea issue during weekend talks with visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry, after Washington's increasingly tough approach towards China. They made the suggestion against the background of growing tensions in the South China Sea. Kerry is due to visit China Saturday and Sunday to prepare for the annual US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which will be held in Washington in late June, and for President Xi Jinping's September...

THE $90 million search for MH370 has discovered “man made objects” almost four kilometres under the surface of the southern Indian Ocean, but they are not the missing Boeing 777. Instead the debris is thought to be from an ancient shipwreck, comprising an anchor and other items. Australian Transport Safety Bureau Operational Search Director Peter Foley said they were “obviously disappointed” the discovery was not the missing aircraft.

The director of national intelligence for the United States says China is expanding and accelerating its buildup of outposts in the South China Sea. James Clapper tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that those outposts now include stationing for ships and potential airfields. …

"...Over the past year, China’s Spratly outposts have been systematically undergoing a process known as “land reclamation,” where dedicated dredging vessels dig up sediment from the sea and dump it on top of submerged reefs to make islands. China has already built five islands through reclamation, and at least two additional islands are in the early stages of development. China is not the first claimant to reclaim land – Malaysia’s Swallow Reef and several Vietnamese islands have been artificially built or extended – but China’s reclamation efforts are operating at a larger scale than any previous project. Already, the artificial...

Arms Buildup: A senior weapons developer tells Congress that Beijing's massive defense buildup, emphasizing precision-guided and other advanced weapons, has placed the U.S. and its shrinking military at serious risk. 'I am very concerned about the increasing risk of loss of U.S. military technological superiority," Frank Kendall, deputy undersecretary for acquisition, said Wednesday. "We're at risk, and the situation is getting worse." He was testifying before the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing on the subject of defense and technological change. The Chinese were paying attention to U.S. military dominance in the early 1990s after we won the arms...

Senior naval officials hinted earlier this week that the new-generation Tuo Jiang-class corvette (沱江艦) could be dispatched to beef up security measures around the disputed Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in the South China Sea if the need arises. Responding to enquiries from legislators, Navy Chief of Staff Hsiao Wei-min (蕭維民) said the recently commissioned Tuo Jiang stealth missile corvette would able to reach Taiwan’s military outpost on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) within one day. Taiping, spanning 46 hectares, is the largest island in the Spratlys, and has permanent troops from Coast Guard Administration units stationed there. The...

'U.S. military shot down MH370 because they thought it had been hacked and was about to be used in terror attack', claims former airline boss Marc Dugain says U.S. Navy in Indian Ocean attacked the plane He claims that islanders saw the plane fly close to a U.S. base Also alleges that a spy told him to back away from his probe into MH370 A former airline boss and writer claims the U.S. downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 because the military feared it had been taken over by hackers and was about to be used in a 9/11-style attack. Marc...

There's only one real way to compare military strength, and thankfully the world hasn't had many opportunities lately. Despite the potential powder keg in the South China Sea, standoffs in Ukraine, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, inter-state warfare between the world's military powers has been all but banished from the global scene (for the time being, at least). For a simpler evaluation of military power, we turned to the Global Firepower Index, a ranking of 106 nations based on more than 50 factors including overall military budget, available manpower, and the amount of equipment each country has in...

Relatives, friends and colleagues paid tribute Friday to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash victims even before the airline released their names as it scrambled to contact the next of kin of the victims. For one Australian family, the crash represented an almost unbelievable double tragedy. Kaylene Mann's brother Rod Burrows and sister-in-law Mary Burrows were on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 when it vanished in March. On Friday, Mann found out that her stepdaughter, Maree Rizk, was killed on Flight 17. "It's just brought everyone, everything back," said Greg Burrows, Mann's brother. "It's just ... ripped our guts again."

Money moved from accounts of 3 passengers into 4th passenger's accounts Five months after the Malaysia Airlines flight went missing, mysterious withdrawals totaling 111,000 RM (£20,916) have been recorded, reports claim. A bank in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, reported the apparent discrepancies in their accounts on July 18, before lodging a police complaint, Assistant Commissioner to the crime investigation department Izany Abdul Ghany revealed. According to reports, the transactions were made on July 18 when money from the accounts of three passengers was transferred to the account of a fourth passenger before it was removed. 'We are investigating the case as...

Not since the American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappeared without a trace over the Pacific 77 years ago has there been a mystery like it. And in so many respects the disappearance of Flight MH370 exactly six months ago today is a far more profound puzzle. When Earhart went missing her plane was equipped with radio navigation systems, a Morse code receiver and a voice transmission system, all of which she used until her plane vanished into the sea. But this is rudimentary equipment compared to the highly sophisticated location devices on board the modern Malaysian Airlines jet. Earhart’s last...

The continuing search for a commercial plane missing for more than six months has led to new ocean discoveries that could save countless lives in the event of catastrophic tsunamis.While conducting the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 jet that disappeared in March with more than 200 souls on board, Australian scientists have uncovered underwater volcanoes and ridges within the depths of the Southern Indian Ocean.Before being prompted by the search efforts, radars and other technologies had yet to delve that deep into the area of the ocean off the western coast of Australia. However, the region is not...

Was Flight MH370 captured by aliens? Stolen by Israeli agents? Or did it crash in Ukraine? A round-up of the best conspiracy theories LAST UPDATED AT 12:06 ON Thu 4 Dec 2014 See related:  Flight MH17: new footage shows aftermath of crash – video MH370: search for missing plane could be over by May The mystery of flight MH370: 7 other planes that vanished In the ongoing absence of firm evidence about the fate of missing flight MH370, the world's conspiracy theorists have weighed in with explanations of their own for the disappearance of the Malaysia Airways plane.The susbsequent...

the Taiwanese-flagged ocean research and survey vessel, RV Ocean Researcher V, has sunk. The 2,700-ton Ocean Researcher V, or OR V, is the flagship research vessel of the Taiwan Ocean Research Institute (TORI), part of the National Applied Research Laboratories operating under the Ministry of Science and Technology for the Republic of China. The vessel is officially owned by National Science Council. ... the ship sank Friday night in the vicinity of the Penghu Islands, located in the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and the China mainland ... The vessel was only delivered in August 2012 and had its maiden voyage...

China told the United States on Tuesday to stay out of disputes over the South China Sea and leave countries in the region to resolve problems themselves, after Washington said it wanted a freeze on stoking tension. Michael Fuchs, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Strategy and Multilateral Affairs, said no country was solely responsible for escalating tension in the region. But he reiterated the U.S. view that "provocative and unilateral" behaviour by China had raised questions about its willingness to abide by international law. China claims 90 percent of the South China Sea, which is believed to contain...

Military radar evidence suggests the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner was deliberately flown west toward the Indian Ocean’s Andaman Islands, sources told Reuters on Friday as mounting evidence pointed to a criminal inquiry into Flight MH370. Two sources told Reuters that an unidentified aircraft – believed by investigators to be the missing Boeing 777 - was following a route between navigational way-points, indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.

With tear-gas flying in the streets of Turkey, Ukraine's civil-war raging in the south and east, US drones based in Japan to oversee the South China Sea, and Europe's extremist parties gaining significant traction, today we get one more piece of considerably worrisome geopolitical news that global stock markets must ignore. The Sunday Times reports that Israel is to deploy three submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf that are meant to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents. Iran is not happy, warning that "anyone who wishes to do an evil...

MAY/JUNE 2013 Historical Fiction: China’s South China Sea Claims Mohan Malik The Spratly Islands—not so long ago known primarily as a rich fishing ground—have turned into an international flashpoint as Chinese leaders insist with increasing truculence that the islands, rocks, and reefs have been, in the words of Premier Wen Jiabao, “China’s historical territory since ancient times.” Normally, the overlapping territorial claims to sovereignty and maritime boundaries ought to be resolved through a combination of customary international law, adjudication before the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, or arbitration under Annex VII...

Confrontation in the South China Sea 19 April 2012 A tense standoff between China and the Philippines continued this week, as Beijing demanded that Manila withdraw a coast guard vessel from the waters around Scarborough Shoal, which both countries claim. China maintains that the entire South China Sea is an internal Chinese lake and asserts sovereignty over all the islands, islets, and rock outcroppings in that massive waterway through which one third of the world’s trade passes. Scarborough, which Beijing calls Huangyan Island and Manila has renamed Panatag Shoal, is about 125 nautical miles off the Philippine coast but at...