Free Republic

China has “enforced maritime management and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” over an uninhabited reef in the disputed South China Sea, planting the country’s flag on the tiny sand bank just kilometers from a key Philippine military outpost. Photographs released by Chinese state-run media on Saturday showed China Coast Guard officers unfurling the flag as part of an effort to effectively seize Sandy Cay reef, which Beijing calls Tiexian Jiao, earlier this month. The reef, located in the flash point Spratly Island chain, is also claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Sandy Cay also sits just over 3 kilometers from Thitu...

The Philippines and China have again clashed in the South China Sea, with Manila and Beijing trading accusations of responsibility for the latest maritime skirmish between the two neighbors amid their fight over sovereignty of the disputed waters. The incident occurred Sunday within the Spratly Islands, a disputed archipelago that is claimed by the Philippines and China, along with several other Asian nations. The Phillipines accused China of ramming and causing the engine failure of a Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessel that was on a "humanitarian mission" to resupply Filipino fisherman. It said eight ships of China's navy...

The sixth meeting of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference's (CPPCC) Standing Committee, the highest-level advisory body of the People's Republic of China, met ahead of the general plenary that is taking place in Beijing from June 22 to 27. During one of the committee's working group meetings on June 18, the former deputy chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and standing committee member of the CPPCC, General Zhang Li, recommended that China build an airport and seaport on Mischief Reef located in the Spratly Islands in the South China...

....State-run Chinese newspaper People’s Daily on Friday posted on its Twitter account a video of a long-range bomber landing in an island in the disputed waters. Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) said the video was taken at Woody Island, China’s largest base in the Paracel Islands that is also being claimed by Vietnam. “Chinese bombers including the H-6K conduct takeoff and landing training on an island reef at a southern sea area,”read the Twitter post by People’s Daily. With its deployment in the Paracels, AMTI said the bombers could now reach almost the entire South China Sea. “Nearly all...

Tyler Durden 10/15/2015 Earlier this week, US officials indicated that they are set to go through with a plan to sail warships around China’s man-made islands in the Spratlys. “It’s just a matter of time when it happens,” one government source told WSJ. Over the course of the last six months, we’ve seen China’s land reclamation efforts go from oddity, to spectacle, to alleged “provocation”, to excuse for war as Washington feels compelled to come to the aid of its allies in the South Pacific who cried foul after it became apparent that this was no “normal” dredging effort. In...

China has hit back at the US in a row over marine territorial claims. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying alluded to the US when she blamed "some countries" for flexing "their military muscles again and again" in the South China Sea. Last week, US officials said they were considering sailing warships in an area around the Spratly island chain which China claims as territory. It has sparked tit-for-tat warnings between the two powers. SNIP The row began when US officials said they were considering sending warships inside the 12-nautical-mile zones that China claims as territory around the Spratlys. That sparked...

Amid the rhetoric, China has maintained it has every right to protect its “legitimate” territorial claims by constructing thousands of acres of sovereign land and, if necessary, enforcing a no-fly zone above the new islands. But while Beijing admits its Spratly sand castles will indeed be used for military purposes, it also says the primary goal of the entire dredging effort is to assist China in carrying out the country's “various civilian demands and international obligations and responsibilities in the area such as maritime search and rescue, disaster prevention and mitigation, marine scientific research, meteorological observation, ecological environment conservation, navigation...

After Chinese state media warned that war with the United States may be “inevitable,” Beijing has published a policy paper detailing how the military will shift its focus from land and coastlines to the open seas. China’s State Council released a white paper today that criticizes “external countries…busy meddling in South China Sea affairs” and sets out an “active defense” military strategy for the country. The paper comes a day after an editorial (link in Chinese) in the state-run Chinese tabloid Global Times said conflict between China and the US will be unavoidable if the Washington doesn’t lay off Beijing...

Philippine military and commercial aircraft will keep flying over disputed areas in the South China Sea despite Chinese warnings over the airspace, President Benigno Aquino said on Monday. "We will still fly the routes that we fly based on the international law from the various conventions we entered into," Aquino told reporters when asked whether the Philippines accepted China's position. The Chinese military last week ordered a US Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane away from airspace above the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea.

China's state media warned on Saturday that a "counterstrike" against the Philippines was inevitable if it continues to provoke Beijing in the South China Sea, potentially Asia's biggest military troublespot. The warning comes as ministers from both countries attend an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Brunei, starting Saturday, which hopes to reach a legally binding code of conduct to manage maritime conduct in disputed areas. At stake are potentially massive offshore oil reserves. The seas also lie on shipping lanes and fishing grounds. Both China and the Philippines have been locked in a decades-old territorial squabble over the...

Manila to send World War II warship into disputed area 04:47 AM Jun 18, 2011 MANILA - With tensions rising over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the Philippines said yesterday it will send its biggest warship, a World War II vessel, to the area after China deployed one of its largest civilian maritime patrol ships. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III also said his government will continue to seek dialogue but insisted his country will not be bullied by China. "We will not be pushed around because we are a tiny state compared with theirs," Mr Aquino said. "We...

China’s sea territorial claim SINGAPORE - Given the generally peaceful state of the South China Sea for the past decade, it is easy to assume that at least one potential flashpoint in Asia has been defused. But recent skirmishes in which Vietnamese fishermen were killed or wounded by Chinese gunboats, followed by the hurried trip to Beijing by Hanoi diplomats, are a reminder that the contest for these waters and their bounty is far from settled. Apart from the divided Korean peninsula and periodic tension in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea remains one of the most serious...

<p>CEBU, Philippines — After years of wrangling, officials in Southeast Asia say they have reached consensus on a formula for easing tensions with China over disputed claims in the South China Sea.</p> <p>"It's a breakthrough," Lauro Baja, undersecretary for foreign affairs in the Philippines, told reporters before senior officials gathered in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei, for an annual meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.</p>