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A Chinese cutter blasted a Philippine fisheries vessel with its water cannon at Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Tuesday morning, officials in Manila said on Tuesday.The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, a civilian department meant to assist and regulate Philippine fishing efforts, said two offshore vessels were harassed by two cutters from the China Coast Guard and a warship from the People’s Liberation Army Navy. According to the agency, BRP Datu Cabaylo (MMOV-3001) and BRP Datu Sanday (MMOV-3002) were at Scarborough Shoal to resupply fishermen fishing near the disputed maritime feature.A video released by Philippine state...

The most terrifying aspect of the collapse of US power worldwide is the US’s indifferent response to it. In Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East and beyond, America’s most dangerous foes are engaging in aggression and brinkmanship unseen in decades. As Gordon Chang noted at a symposium in Los Angeles last month hosted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, since President Barack Obama entered office in 2009, the Chinese have responded to his overtures of goodwill and appeasement with intensified aggression against the US’s Asian allies and against US warships. In 2012, China seized the Scarborough Shoal from the...

US President Barack Obama has assured Japan that islands at the centre of its territorial dispute with China are covered by a bilateral defence treaty. In an interview ahead of his Asian tour, Mr Obama said the US would oppose any attempt to undermine Japan's control over the islands.

Japan began its first military expansion at the western end of its island chain in more than 40 years on Saturday, breaking ground on a radar station on a tropical island off Taiwan. The move risks angering China, locked in a dispute with Japan over nearby islands which they both claim. Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, who attended a ceremony on Yonaguni island to mark the start of construction, suggested the military presence could be enlarged to other islands in the seas southwest of Japan's main islands. "This is the first deployment since the U.S. returned Okinawa (1972) and calls...

Happy Easter, Happy Passover. On this Good Friday, we mark the tenth anniversary of Mel's movie, and over the weekend we'll have something with a lighter touch. Caroline Glick, my old colleague from The Jerusalem Post, has a column using a very Steynian word, "The Disappearance of America's Will": The most terrifying aspect of the collapse of US power worldwide is the US's indifferent response to it. In Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East and beyond, America's most dangerous foes are engaging in aggression and brinkmanship unseen in decades.

China plans to occupy a disputed chain of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea to expand its territory before regional rules on maritime behavior come into effect, the Philippines’ top diplomat said on Wednesday. The Philippines believes China’s incursion into the Scarborough Shoal is a threat to peace in Southeast Asia, said Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario. In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman described the shoal—which lies about 125 nautical miles off the Philippines’ main island of Luzon—as China’s “inherent territory”. …

Since mid April Chinese naval vessels have been circling a pile of rocks situated 124 miles off the coast of the Philippines that barely qualifies as an “island”. The rocks are called the Scarborough Shoal and save for there position, and rumors of oil and gas under them, they have no value to anyone. Nevertheless it is precisely because they are so far from their own shore that the Chinese are trying to pressure the Filipinos into relinquishing their long held claim (since 1734) to Panatag as they call them. Moreover since the Scarborough Shoal at just 124 miles off...

The Philippines says its main naval vessel is engaged in a stand-off with Chinese surveillance ships at a disputed South China Sea shoal. The Philippines said its warship tried to arrest Chinese fishermen anchored at the Scarborough Shoal, but was blocked by the two surveillance boats. Both countries dispute the ownership of the shoal, which lies off the Philippines' northwestern coast. The Philippine government said it would "assert sovereignty" over the area. A statement from the county's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the naval vessel, the Gregorio Del Pilar, found eight Chinese fishing vessels at the shoal when it was...