Free Republic

....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...

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...