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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...

A newly contentious phase appears to be under way in the South China Sea, where China has made expansive territorial claims, after the head of US naval operations said today in Tokyo that US vessels are free to travel “wherever international law allows." Echoing earlier remarks by US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, John Richardson, the US chief of naval operations, stated that, "It should not come as a surprise to anybody that we will exercise freedom of navigation wherever international law allows.” He added that "I don't see how this can be interpreted as provocative." A Chinese spokesman responded by...

Canada’s military has again delayed the opening of a major new Arctic port, a sign the government is struggling to assert sovereignty over a remote resource-rich region. The planned deep water naval facility at Nanisivik – some 3,100 km (1,900 miles) north of Ottawa – is one of the key components of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “use it or lose it” approach to the Arctic. The port, initially due to open in 2012, will now not be operational until 2018.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The Obama administration pressed Beijing on Thursday to accept a code of conduct for resolving territorial disputes in the resource-rich South China Sea, a difficult U.S. mediation effort that has faced resistance from the communist government. It has endeared the U.S., however, to once-hostile countries in Southeast Asia. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' annual conference. Sitting across from each other at a long table in a grand hall with chandeliers, Clinton stressed the different ways Washington...

Swedish researchers have joined Danish colleagues in an attempt to establish Denmark's claims to parts of the Arctic region. The expedition follows the planting of a flag on the underwater Lomonosov Ridge by a Russian expedition last week. The expedition, led by Swedish icebreaker Oden, set off from Norway on Sunday. It is being led jointly by Martin Jakobsson of Stockholm University and Christian Marcussen of the Geological Survey of Denmark. The Danes claim that the ridge is on the same continental shelf as Greenland, which is a Danish territory. They hope that the expedition will prove the country's claim...