Free Republic

The Western Pacific “island chains” are a persistent feature of Asia’s maritime geography. While their underlying fundaments remain constant, their specific strategic importance has evolved over time. Different major powers have thus interpreted, then re-interpreted and re-evaluated, the value of particular islands, the role they play in national military strategy, and their operational significance in a warfighting context. Chinese naval strategists such as former naval commander Admiral Liu Huaqing have devoted considerable attention to the island chains since the mid-1980s, examining how and where the island chains can hinder or support China’s maritime goals. Yet Chinese strategists are hardly unique...

The first AG600 amphibious aircraft rolls off a production line in Zhuhai, in south China's Guangdong Province. The aircraft will be used to fight forest fires and perform marine rescue missions. (Xinhua photo) GUANGZHOU, Xinhua --- China has completed production of a massive amphibious aircraft that it plans to use to fight forest fires and perform marine rescue missions. The AG600 rolled off a production line in the southern city of Zhuhai on Saturday, in what aviation observers see as a milestone for the country. The aircraft has a maximum take-off weight of 53.5 tonnes, a maximum cruising speed of...

The decisions of the UNCLOS “compulsory” arbitration tribunal are not enforceable in the conventional legal sense The international arbitration tribunal, constituted under Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”), issued its final Award on July 12th in the so-called “compulsory” arbitration instituted by the Republic of the Philippines against the People’s Republic of China. The Philippines had sought rulings on a number of issues, including the source of the parties’ rights and obligations in the South China Sea and the effect of UNCLOS on China’s claims to historic rights within its claimed ‘nine-dash...

BEIJING has sent the US a message in the skies above the South China Sea: Anything you can do, we can do too. It’s just flown a nuclear-capable bomber over Scarborough Shoal. The United States has conducted several B-52 bomber ‘freedom of navigation’ flights over the contested waterway in recent months, along with flights by surveillance and patrol aircraft. Beijing on Friday returned the favour. The People’s Liberation air force (PLAAF) at the weekend released photographs of one of its newest H-6K long-range nuclear-capable bombers overflying Scarborough Shoal on China’s Weibo social media service. The aircraft, based on a 1950s...

Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People's Liberation Army to prepare for combat. This comes after an international tribunal on Tuesday issued an unfavorable ruling against China's claims over the South China Sea. U.S.-based Boxun News said Tuesday that the instruction was given in case the United States takes provocative action in the waters once the ruling is made. The U.S. and China have been expanding their military activities across the sea, stoking heavy tension between the two superpowers. China controls roughly 90 percent of the South China Sea, a critical waterway that handles some five trillion U.S. dollars...

China has no legal basis to claim “historic rights” to islands in the South China Sea, an international tribunal ruled on Tuesday in a bitter dispute that risks stoking further tensions in Southeast Asia. “The Tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’,” the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration said in a statement. It has dealt a setback to Beijing that the US fears could intensify moves to establish its control by force. How Beijing responds to the ruling in the case filed by US...

The US Navy is making its presence known in the heavily disputed South China Sea. It recently deployed two aircraft carriers along with about 140 aircraft and additional ships to conduct training exercises. This action comes as China and the Philippines await a decision from The Hague about whether or not the former can legally claim sovereignty over the South China Sea.

Dozens of activists were detained in Vietnam's two biggest cities Sunday as they tried to hold protests calling for greater government transparency over a recent spate of mass fish deaths. Tonnes of dead fish and other marine life began washing up on central Vietnamese shores two months ago and continued to appear for two to three weeks, sparking widespread anger. Frustration has been further fuelled by a perceived lack of clarity from the communist leadership about what caused the deaths. Major streets in central Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City were temporarily deserted on Sunday morning as security forces blanketed...

ULAANBAATAR (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday the United States would consider any Chinese establishment of an air defense zone over the South China Sea to be a "provocative and destabilizing act". U.S. officials have expressed concern that an international court ruling expected in coming weeks on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims could prompt Beijing to declare an air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, as it did over the East China Sea in 2013. "We would consider an ADIZ...over portions of the South China Sea as...

Striking a notably positive tone, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Saturday offered closer U.S. cooperation with China in pursuit of a deeper and broader Asian security network. He said he intends to visit Beijing this year. In a speech to an international security conference in Singapore, Carter repeated frequent U.S. complaints about China unnerving its neighbors with expansive moves to build up reefs, islets and other land features in the disputed South China Sea. But he did not explicitly accuse China of militarizing those areas. He emphasized possibilities for cooperating with China while stating that the U.S. will remain...

<p>As China continues to posture in the South China Sea, tensions rise between China, Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and other regional powers such as Japan and India.</p> <p>At the defense blog War is Boring, US Naval War College Professor James Holmes discusses recent developments in the South China Sea and the risk of regional conflict.</p>

Tribunal’s conduct serves as a case study of the dangers in delegating too much ill-defined juridical power to an unaccountable, non-democratic transnational institution Multilateral treaties have become a bedrock of international law, especially since the end of World War II. More than 600 multilateral treaties have been sponsored by the United Nations out of the approximately 8,000 multilateral treaties entered into since World War II. In setting out the parties’ rights and obligations, norms of behavior and dispute resolution mechanisms, carefully written treaties that have buy-in from the member countries can reduce the potential for resort to armed conflict or...

Yet again, China is floating around the idea of building floating nuclear plants, but this time they are planning on an entire flotilla -- in the South China Sea. To provide power to the cozy artificial islands it has built up from reefs just sticking over the surf, China announced on Friday that it will construct a fleet of 20 power plants floating over the hotly disputed waters, People's Daily reports.

China has just had a run-in with its only friend in the South China Sea, and that could complicate matters for Beijing as it continues to try to take a more aggressive stance in the region. On March 19, an official Indonesian vessel detained a Chinese fishing trawler that was operating in Indonesia's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the coast of the Natuna islands. The islands are on the periphery of the South China Sea, and their EEZ abuts China's self-declared Nine-Dash Line, which Beijing uses to mark its claims in the region. In the past, Indonesia has not had...

China’s ambassador to Indonesia is being summoned over a standoff involving a trawler in the South China Sea, an incident an international expert described as so serious it could alter Indonesia’s foreign policy. Susi Pudjiastuti, Indonesia’s minister for fisheries and maritime affairs, told reporters he would summon the Chinese ambassador, Xie Feng, on Monday to discuss a Chinese fishing trawler accused of illegally fishing in Indonesian waters. Indonesian authorities attempted to capture the trawler on Saturday and arrest the Chinese crew. But they were stopped by a Chinese coast guard boat that reportedly “rammed” the trawler and pushed it back...

MANILA, Philippines – The Chinese have taken over another traditional Filipino fishing ground near Palawan where they have stationed up to five ships to keep local fishermen at bay, sources said. Now effectively under Chinese control is Quirino or Jackson Atoll, which has been a rich source of catch for a long time for fishermen from Palawan, Southern Luzon, Western Visayas and even Manila. Gray and white Chinese vessels have not left the atoll, which Filipino fishermen also call Jackson Five, because of the existence of five lagoons in the area. The Chinese are claiming almost the entire South China...

Fox News reported that China had moved surface-to-air missiles to the Paracels, identifying them as two batteries of the HQ-9 system, along with radar targeting arrays. The missiles have a range of about 125 miles, making them a threat to all forms of civilian and military aircraft. The move would follow China's building of new islands in the disputed sea by piling sand atop reefs and then adding airstrips and military installations. They are seen as part of Beijing's efforts to claim virtually the entire South China Sea and its resources, which has prompted some of its wary neighbors to...

The United States and India have held talks about conducting joint naval patrols that a U.S. defence official said could include the disputed South China Sea, a move that would likely anger Beijing, which claims most of the waterway. Washington wants its regional allies and other Asian nations to take a more united stance against China over the South China Sea, where tensions have spiked in the wake of Beijing's construction of seven man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago. India and the United States have ramped up military ties in recent years, holding naval exercises in the Indian Ocean that...

story from AP, so, not risking an excerpt.

The Civil Aviation Department of Hong Kong has received a pilot’s report that a large amount of debris was spotted in Vietnamese waters. The pilot, flying a Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur plane, says the debris is located about 60 kilometres southeast of Vietnamese city Vung Tau, some 500 kilometers from where the Malaysian jetliner lost contact with air traffic controllers. The department has submitted the message to the relevant authorities.