The vessel, named Bei Dao 996, was first tracked by SeaLight, which uses commercially available technology to monitor and expose so-called “gray zone” activities — meaning coercive activities at sea that stop short of triggering a military response. China is often accused of adopting such tactics to assert its sweeping claims over the disputed waters in the South and East China Seas.

On his X account, Ray Powell, director of SeaLight, revealed that the ship came close to Vietnam’s coastline. In response, Vietnam’s fishery surveillance vessel Kiem Ngu 471 closely shadowed the Chinese ship. The two vessels came as close as 80 meters apart, according to Powell, who warned that the encounter carries a “risk of prolonged escalation” between the two countries.

According to calculations by researcher Phan Van Song, area surveyed so far is nearly 2,000 square kilometers (770 square miles) — about 1,100 square kilometers (425 square miles) of which lies within Vietnam’s EEZ, with the remainder falling within the country’s extended continental shelf.

An EEZ extends 200 nautical miles (230 miles) from the coast. It is where a country has sole rights to explore resources but must allow free passage to shipping.

This particular stretch of water of Vietnam is considered sensitive as it lies near Cam Ranh, the nation’s most important naval base and home to its submarine fleet. The survey ship is suspected of conducting dual-purpose activities - scientific research and military intelligence, according to SeaLight.

The Vietnamese government has yet to respond to China’s actions, and state-run media have not reported on the incident.

Article 248 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates that when conducting marine scientific research in the exclusive economic zone or on the continental shelf of a coastal state, the researching party is obligated to provide the coastal state with full information about the project no later than six months prior to the intended start date of the research.

It appears unlikely that China would notify Vietnam before sending a survey ship. Beijing claims about 80 percent of the South China Sea as its own - an area roughly demarcated by the so-called nine-dash line which overlaps with waters claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. It also overlaps with waters inside the EEZ of Indonesia, although that country does not consider itself a South China Sea claimant.

Speaking to RFA, Phan Van Song, the contributor to the South China Sea Research Foundation, said “no matter what actions Vietnam takes, China will certainly continue its blatant and illegal survey activities.” The foundation was established by Vietnamese experts who focus on UNCLOS and the South China Sea.

In recent years, China has repeatedly sent survey ships into the waters of other countries in the region. According to SeaLight, which was set up by volunteers from Stanford University, these vessels are largely state-owned and typically operate under the guise of civilian or scientific missions, but often engage in covert intelligence gathering or strategic signaling.

During May and June 2024, the Chinese survey ship Xiang Yang Hong 10 remained for nearly a month in Vietnam’s oil and gas fields. In April this year, another vessel, Song Hang, was seen zigzagging between the islands of the Philippines. China also sent a survey vessel into Malaysia’s EEZ in the southern part of the South China Sea in 2023.

These surveys are used to gather intelligence, including seafloor mapping, monitoring foreign military and commercial activities, and improving China’s operational awareness for current and future contingencies, according to an analysis by SeaLight.

Experts say China’s gray-zone tactics have proven successful, allowing Beijing to advance its maritime claims while disguising its activities as civilian operations. This approach helps avoid direct military confrontation and limits the ability of other countries to respond effectively.

A good way to counter China’s tactics is through “maritime transparency,” according to Powell, who believes that exposing China’s actions as they occur helps clarify their gray-zone strategies and their impact on regional security.

Translated by Truong Son. Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Du Lan for RFA Vietnamese.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Rise of Asia.

China and the Philippines last week staged rival flag-raising displays on Sandy Cay, a key site for Manila to monitor Chinese activity in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Hanoi, which also considers the sandbank part of its territory, said on Saturday that it had sent diplomatic notes to both China and the Philippines protesting their recent activities at the disputed site.

“Vietnam calls on the relevant parties to respect Vietnam’s sovereignty, comply with international law, and contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the East Sea,” Pham Thu Hang, Vietnam’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a statement.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on April 26 that China’s coast guard had landed at Sandy Cay as part of a maritime operation to assert Beijing’s sovereignty over the Spratly Islands.

The Philippines, a day later, sent its own coast guards and police officers to the sandbars and found no one there, with both nations raising their flags over the disputed reef.

Vietnam has employed a mixed strategy of balancing, bandwagoning, and neutrality when dealing with the controversies between China and the Philippines in the region.

In April, coast guards from China and Vietnam completed their first joint patrol of 2025 in the Gulf of Tonkin, marking the 29th such joint patrol since 2006.

During the operation, vessels conducted joint maritime search and rescue exercises and monitored fishing activities along established maritime boundaries, which China characterized as “a model for maritime law enforcement cooperation in the South China Sea.”

However, Vietnam has also been enhancing security cooperation with the Philippines.

In August 2024, the Philippine and Vietnamese coast guards conducted their first joint firefighting and search-and-rescue exercises off Manila, focusing on humanitarian aspects of maritime operations.

At the time, Vietnamese Defense Minister Gen. Phan Van Giang also held talks with Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro in Manila, where they signed letters of intent to enhance disaster response and military medicine engagements.

Both defense leaders expressed their commitment to deepening defense and military cooperation through “continued interaction and engagements at all levels.” They agreed to resolve disagreements peacefully within the framework of international law.

Apart from that, Vietnam has taken steps to strengthen its legal position regarding maritime claims. In February 2025, the Southeast Asian country announced a new baseline defining its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin.

China responded to this announcement by launching live-fire military exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin, signaling Beijing’s disagreement with Hanoi’s sovereignty claims.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.

The standoff occurred at Sandy Cay, near the Philippines’ outpost of Thitu Island, right when the U.S. and the Philippines launched their annual “Balikatan” military drills, which for the first time include an integrated air and missile defense simulation.

Sandy Cay holds strategic value because its 12-nautical-mile territorial zone under international law overlaps with the area around Thitu Island, a key site for Manila to monitor Chinese activity in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

The latest flare-up appears to have started on Thursday, after Chinese state media reported that the Chinese Coast Guard had landed on the sandbank two weeks earlier, hoisted a national flag, and “exercised sovereign jurisdiction.”

“Since 2024, the Philippines has made multiple attempts to send vessels near Chinese-held features in the South China Sea to monitor what it describes as artificial island-building activities,” the state-run broadcaster CCTV reported on Saturday. It published a photograph of five black-clad people standing on the uninhabited reef as a dark inflatable boat bobbed in the nearby water.

(CCTV)

In response, the Philippines Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said on Sunday that its navy, coast guard and police personnel had deployed to Sandy Cay in four rubber boats and had “observed the illegal presence” of a Chinese Coast Guard vessel and seven Chinese maritime militia vessels.

“This operation reflects the unwavering dedication and commitment of the Philippine government to uphold the country’s sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea,” said Tarriela, who posted footage of the Philippine flag being displayed.

The term “West Philippine Sea” is used by the Philippines to refer to parts of the South China Sea that it claims, although the designation is disputed by China.

William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, said China is showcasing both its ability and determination to assert its territorial claims throughout the South China Sea.

China and the Philippines have long been locked in a territorial dispute over parts of the South China Sea, a vital waterway rich in resources and trade routes.

Beijing claims nearly the entire sea under its “nine-dash line,” a claim rejected by an international tribunal in 2016, which ruled in favor of the Philippines.

Despite the ruling, China has continued to assert its presence through patrols, island-building, and militarization, while the Philippines has sought to defend its claims through diplomatic protests and military partnerships.

“It serves as a warning to the Philippines and other claimant states in the region that any attempt to undermine Chinese territorial integrity will be met with resolute and strong Chinese responses,” Yang told Radio Free Asia.

Huang Tsung-ting, an associate research fellow with Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, believes China has recently adopted a more defensive posture toward the Philippines in the South China Sea.

“Compared to 2023 to the first half of 2024, when China escalated tensions in the South China Sea and attempted to seize islands and reefs as a way to pressure the U.S. and the Philippines diplomatically, its current approach is more defensive and passive,” said Huang.

The latest dispute between two nations came as the U.S. and Philippines forces are conducting annual Balikatan exercises, which Beijing has condemned as “provocative.”

The flag raise was “a calculative move by Beijing to show Washington and Manila that it has the ability to establish presence anywhere they want in the South China Sea and that Beijing is not going to back down in the face of the increased cooperation between the U.S. and the Philippines,” International Crisis Group’s Yang said.

While visiting Manila last month, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington was “doubling down” on its alliance with the country and was committed to rebuilding deterrence against China.

Huang shares a similar view.

“Even though the number of U.S. troops participating in this year’s Balikatan exercise seems slightly lower – by about 2,000 compared to last year – the overall posture of cooperation still looks strong enough to cause concern for China,” he said.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.

A code of conduct aims to establish a framework for ensuring peace in the South China Sea where Beijing’s expansive territorial claims overlap with the exclusive economic zones of some Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines and Vietnam.

“Everyone has agreed that we would all like to have a code by 2026,” said Enrique Manalo at a maritime security forum in Manila on Thursday.

“We still have to address important issues such as the scope of the code, also the nature of the code and its relation also to the declaration of the principles adopted in 2002 on the South China Sea,” he said.

“We hope, and we will do all that we can to try and achieve a successful negotiation.”

A South China Sea code of conduct has been under discussion for over two decades.

Separately, Philippines’ National Security Council spokesperson assistant director Jonathan Malaya described the talks as advancing at a “glacial pace.”

However, he was still optimistic they would be wrapped up within a year.

“Hopefully, by the time that the Philippines is chairman of the [regional forum] ASEAN, the code of conduct will be completed,” he said.

The Philippines will host the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2026.

Last year, Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged ASEAN to hasten talks on the code amid rising South China Sea tensions.

Fundamental issues such as geographic scope and the legal status of a nonbinding South China Sea declaration signed in 2002 still need to be resolved, he said.

Chinese aircraft carriers spotted near Philippines

The Philippine official’s comments on the code talks came as the country’s navy confirmed the presence of China’s Shandong aircraft carrier near its waters.

A Chinese electronic surveillance ship was also monitored off the northern coast of Luzon on Tuesday. The Philippine Navy challenged the presence of the Chinese warships, according to a navy spokesperson Cpt. John Percie Alcos.

“They’re actually conducting normal naval operations en route to a specific destination that we still do not know. Their passage was expeditious,” said Alcos.

The Chinese warship was seen as the Philippines, United States, and Japan prepared to conduct a joint sailing on Thursday as part of the annual Balikatan military exercises between Manila and Washington.

On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun criticized the Philippines for its military drills with the U.S.

“The Philippines chose to conduct the large-scale military drills with this country outside the region and brought in strategic and tactical weapons to the detriment of regional strategic stability and regional economic prospects, which puts them on the opposite side of regional countries,” he said.

Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

Manila has used “West Philippine Sea” since 2011 to assert its maritime claims within its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, distinguishing it from China’s broader claim over the South China Sea. Beijing has rejected the term, viewing it as a political assertion that challenges its claim of “indisputable sovereignty” over the entire sea.

As of April 17, the label “West Philippine Sea” was visible by default on Google Maps, without the need for users to search for it specifically, which was the case in the past.

“The proper and consistent labeling of the West Philippine Sea on the widely used platform Google Maps is welcome news for every Filipino,” the speaker of the Philippines House of Representatives, Martin Romualdez, said in a statement Tuesday.

“This simple yet powerful update reflects the growing global acknowledgment of the Philippines’ sovereign rights over the maritime areas within our EEZ.”

Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said the inclusion of the West Philippines Sea in Google Maps also reflects a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s sweeping claims to the South China Sea.

“As defenders of national sovereignty, the AFP sees this as a valuable contribution to truthful representation and public awareness,” Padilla said at a press briefing at Camp Aguinaldo.

China’s foreign ministry said South China Sea is widely recognized by other nations as the correct name.

“For a long time, the South China Sea has been a common geographical name recognized by the international community and widely accepted by countries around the world and international organizations such as the United Nations,” ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular press briefing Tuesday.

Ding Duo, a researcher at China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, told state media that West Philippine Sea “hype” from the Philippines does “nothing to change the fact that China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands.”

It’s unclear why Google made the change, but a spokesperson told Agence France-Presse: “The West Philippine Sea has always been labeled on Google Maps. We recently made this label easier to see at additional zoom levels.”

Despite a 2016 Hague tribunal ruling that invalidated China’s expansive South China Sea claims, Beijing has continued to assert control over the region, which is an important route for international shipping.

The court sided with the Philippines, citing violations of its EEZ, but China rejected the decision and has since expanded its presence through militarized islands, patrols and increased maritime activity – fuelling rising tensions.

In April, both nations accused each other of dangerous maneuvers near Scarborough Shoal, a disputed area within the Philippines’ EEZ.

The Philippine Coast Guard reported that a Chinese vessel obstructed a Philippine ship, while China alleged that the Philippine vessel approached dangerously, attempting to fabricate a collision.

The Philippines has also raised concerns about Chinese interference in resource exploration.

Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said that China was hindering Filipino companies from exploring natural resources in the contested waters, including oil and gas reserves. He cited incidents such as water cannoning, use of lasers and ramming by Chinese forces as examples of harassment.​

In response to these challenges, the Philippines and the United States have strengthened their military cooperation.

The annual “Balikatan” joint military exercises, involving approximately 14,000 troops, are scheduled from April 21 to May 9. These drills aim to enhance defense readiness and interoperability between the two allies.

Edited by Stephen Wright and Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

The United States has approved a multibillion-dollar deal to sell 20 fighter jets to the Philippines, officials announced just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made his first official visit to Manila.

The sale for the package of F-16s along with related equipment and parts is contingent on Manila formally accepting it through a letter, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DCSA) said in a statement Tuesday.

“The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of the Philippines of F-16 Aircraft for an estimated cost of $5.58 billion,” the statement said, adding the DCSA had notified Congress about the possible sale.

The Philippines, one of America’s closest allies in Southeast Asia, for years has been looking to modernize and upgrade its military arsenal and air force fleet as it confronts territorial tensions with China in the South China Sea.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic partner that continues to be an important force for political stability, peace and economic progress in Southeast Asia,” the DCSA said.

If finalized, the sale “will enhance the Philippine Air Force’s ability to conduct maritime domain awareness and close air support missions and enhance its suppression of enemy air defenses,” the agency said. “This sale will also increase the ability of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to protect vital interests and territory, as well as expand interoperability with the U.S. forces.”

The sale, the agency also said, would “not alter the basic military balance in the region.”

The Philippine Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a BenarNews request for comment.

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Greg Poling, a maritime analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said it was too soon to say if the deal would go through.

“State has approved it, but that doesn’t mean the Philippines will actually follow through with the purchase, or that the final number will really be 20 F-16s,” he told BenarNews.

“If this does happen, it certainly doesn’t change the balance of power, but it could give the Philippines a greater ability to defend its own aircraft over the South China Sea. Right now, the Philippines’ only capable combat aircraft are FA-50 trainer jets from South Korea.”

Defense secretary visit

The announcement followed Hegseth’s meetings with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. on March 28 in Manila, where he assured the Filipinos that Washington’s defense commitment to its treaty ally would remain strong under the second administration of President Donald Trump.

“Deterrence is necessary around the world, but specifically in this region, in your country, considering the threats from the communist Chinese, and that friends need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to deter conflict,” Hegseth told Marcos, according to a transcript of their meeting at Malacañang Palace.

(Basilio Sepe/Reuters)

Marcos said that Hegseth’s choosing Manila as the first stop on his first Asian trip as the Pentagon chief “sends a very strong message of the commitment of both our countries to continue to work together to maintain the peace in the Indo-Pacific region within the South China Sea.”

China: Who’s fueling the flames?

In Beijing on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Guo Jiakun questioned the proposed sale.

“We’ve made clear more than once our position on military and security cooperation between the Philippines and the U.S. Whatever defense or security cooperation between the Philippines and other countries should not target any third party or harm their interest, still less threaten regional peace and security or escalate tensions in the region,” he said in response to a question during the daily news conference.

“Who exactly is fueling the flames? Who exactly is instigating military confrontation? Who exactly is turning Asia into a ‘powder keg?’ Regional countries are not blind.” 

For months, Philippine officials had filed diplomatic complaints against their Chinese counterparts over incidents involving ships firing water cannons and jets flying too closely in disputed South China Sea waters.

In January, a Philippine Navy spokesman accused China of an “increase in aggression” by using a long-rang acoustic device that sailors said could damage hearing or cause severe discomfort by emitting piercing, high-decibel sounds.

‘Unprecedented’ funding

Under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, the U.S. announced in July 2024 what it called an “unprecedented” infusion of $500 million to help the Philippines defend its shores against perceived threats from China.

Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken, then the U.S. secretaries of defense and state, negotiated with their Filipino counterparts, Teodoro and Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo at a “2+2” meeting in Manila.

“[W]e are taking bold steps to strengthen our alliance,” Austin told reporters following nearly four hours of closed-door talks.

“We are poised to deliver a once-in-a-generation investment to help modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard. We are working with the U.S. congress to allocate $500 million in foreign military financing into the Philippines,” he said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by BenarNews staff.

Hegseth met with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Philippine counterpart Gilberto Teodoro Jr. on Friday, reiterating that Washington’s defense commitment to its longtime ally in Southeast Asia would remain strong under the second Trump administration.

“Deterrence is necessary around the world, but specifically in this region, in your country, considering the threats from the communist Chinese, and that friends need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to deter conflict,” the U.S. defense chief told Marcos, according to an official transcript.

The Philippines is embroiled in tensions with China over contending territorial claims in the South China Sea. Standoffs have occurred lately in waters where Chinese coast guard ships often encroach into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

“Your visit to the region, especially the fact that you have come to the Philippines as your first stop is a very strong indication (and) sends a very strong message of the commitment of both our countries to continue to work together to maintain the peace in the Indo-Pacific region within the South China Sea,” Marcos told Hegseth during their meeting at the presidential Malacañang Palace.

(Basilio Sepe/Reuters)

The United States would implement some new initiatives including “deploying more advanced U.S. capabilities in the Philippines” – among them, a mobile and land-based anti-ship missile launcher and unmanned surface vessels, according to a joint statement issued after Teodoro and Hegseth met.

Hegseth’s visit to Manila was the first by a top official from the new Trump administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump is “very committed” to the “ironclad” defense alliance between Manila and Washington, Hegseth said.

“What we’re dealing with right now is many years of deferred maintenance, of weakness that we have to reestablish strength and deterrence in multiple places around the globe. But pertinently today, for this region,” Hegseth said.

“We don’t seek intervention. President Trump has made it clear we don’t seek war …. We don’t seek to use chess pieces and move them around the board. All we seek is peace. All we seek is freedom and cooperation, and mutual benefit,” he added, according to a transcript from the Pentagon.

Hegseth arrived in Manila on Thursday night after revelations that he and other senior U.S. national security officials had discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen on the messaging app Signal with a journalist present.

Critics are calling it a flagrant violation of information security protocols and have called on Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to resign.

(Noel Celis/Reuters)

After the American and Filipino defense chiefs met, China’s foreign ministry warned that the Philippines should not start a conflict in the South China Sea with the support of the U.S.

“Any cooperation between the United States and the Philippines should not be directed against a third party or harm the interests of a third party, and it should not exaggerate the so-called threats, provoke confrontation and aggravate tensions in the region,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a press briefing.

“The U.S. side should abandon its Cold War mentality, stop instigating ideological confrontation, stop provoking trouble in the South China Sea and sowing discord in the region, and refrain from being an instigator in the South China Sea,” he said.

Anti-ship missile launcher

Among the initiatives that Manila and Washington agreed to, the U.S. would deploy the land-based anti-ship missile launcher – the so-called Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) as part of the joint large-scale Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises happening next month in the Philippines.

American Special Operations Forces would also train together with Filipino marines in the Batanes chain, the Philippines’ northernmost islands that directly face Taiwan, the joint statement said.

“These efforts will accelerate the defense partnership and ensure that the alliance is postured to address the most consequential challenges in the Indo-Pacific region,” Hegseth and Teodoro said.

BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

The arrests of the Chinese suspects, who officials said were posing as fishermen, brought to 12 the number of Chinese citizens taken into custody in the Philippines this year for alleged espionage. The cases have unfolded against the backdrop of heightened tensions between Manila and Beijing in the contested South China Sea.

The seven suspects were arrested on March 19 after Philippine military intelligence alerted the National Bureau of Investigation about “foreign nationals suspected of carrying out covert intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations” around Grande Island at the entrance of Subic Bay, the NBI said in a statement Wednesday.

The six Chinese “were closely monitored for engaging in deemed suspicious activities, involving a collection of sensitive data” affecting national defense, the bureau said. A Filipino national, who was acting as their security guard, was also arrested.

“Counter-intelligence efforts disclosed that these individuals were occupying the island under the guise of recreational fishers, frequently lingering at the wharves until the wee hours,” NBI director Jaime Santiago said.

“However, multiple witnesses reported that the group was utilizing drones in the guise of transporting fishing bait – conducting surveillance on naval assets, including those from local forces and allied nations, passing through Grande Island,” he said.

Located at the mouth of Subic Bay, Grande Island was once an artillery training ground for American forces. From 1901 to 1992, Subic Bay was home to the largest U.S. naval base outside of America.

The Chinese nationals were identified as He Peng, Xu Xining, Ye Tianwu, Ye Xiaocan, Dick Ang and Su Anlong. The Filipino suspect was identified as Melvin Aguillon.

The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to BenarNews requests for comment. China’s foreign ministry had not yet reacted to the arrests.

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A witness told the NBI that the men were “operating a drone, in the guise of a fishing game, conducting their usual ISR operations towards Subic Bay,” on March 18, the bureau said, referring to “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”

The bureau said it seized “photographs and documents of Philippine and U.S. Naval assets,” as well as electronic gadgets containing surveillance photos and videos.

Because of Grande Island’s strategic location, it allowed “the group to monitor naval assets entering and exiting Subic Bay during maritime patrols or joint naval exercises in the West Philippine Sea,” Santiago said, using the Philippine name for South China Sea waters within Manila’s exclusive economic zone.

Further NBI investigation showed that one of the arrested men, Ye Tianwu-also known as Qui Feng or Quing Feng-had an outstanding arrest warrant issued by a local court in Tarlac province for alleged violations of the country’s securities code.

In January, the NBI arrested six Chinese nationals accused of spying.

One of them was Deng Yuanqing, a software engineer, who allegedly used spy equipment as he drove around critical sites in Manila between December and January. The other five Chinese nationals were arrested in separate operations in the same month.

Authorities said they had been seen frequenting areas in Palawan, another island facing the South China Sea, and collecting intelligence about Philippine Navy activities there.

Subic Bay, about 50 miles northwest of Manila on Luzon island, is considered strategically important because it opens onto the South China Sea and is close to the contested Scarborough Shoal.

The shoal, located within the Philippines’ EEZ, has been under China’s de facto control since 2012.

In recent years, rival territorial claimants Manila and Beijing have faced off in high-stakes confrontations in the shoal and other disputed areas of the South China Sea, a potentially mineral-rich waterway and crucial corridor for international shipping.

Jeoffrey Maitem in Davao contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jojo Rinoza and Gerard Carreon for BenarNews.

He is scheduled to arrive on Friday amid heightened territorial tensions in the South China Sea between Manila and Beijing over Chinese coast guard encroachments in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

In Manila, Hegseth is to meet with his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro Jr., to discuss their nations’ long-standing defense alliance.

“In a few days, my counterpart, the honorable Pete Hegseth, secretary of defense of the United States of America, will be paying a visit to the president and to myself where we will discuss ways to enhance our bilateral and trilateral and squad partnership,” Teodoro told reporters on Monday.

Apart from its 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with Washington, the Philippines has a year-old trilateral defense pact with the United States and Japan. It is also a member of the “Squad,” an informal grouping of countries including the U.S., Australia, and Japan that have staged joint maritime activities in the South China Sea since last year.

After a two-day stay in the Philippines, Hegseth will go to Japan to attend the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima and meet with Japanese officials.

The American defense chief’s first official visit to Asia comes on the heels of controversy over his and other senior U.S. government officials discussing top-secret plans for a military operation on an encrypted messaging app with a journalist present. Critics are calling it a flagrant violation of information security protocols.

Hegseth, who was in Hawaii on Tuesday meeting officials of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, will stop in Guam before traveling on to Manila.

In the Philippine capital, Hegseth “will advance security objectives with Philippine leaders and meet with U.S. and Philippine forces,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement last week.

Reacting to Hegseth’s visit, Beijing warned that any security agreement involving Manila and other nations “should not target any third party” or escalate regional tensions.

“Facts have repeatedly proven that nothing good could come out of opening the door to a predator. Those who willingly serve as chess pieces will be deserted in the end,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday.

“Our message to some in the Philippines: [S]top serving as other countries’ mouthpiece and no more stunt[s] for personal political agenda[s].”

Questions about American commitment

Asia-Pacific defense experts have been keeping an eye on the Trump administration’s stances on geopolitical developments in Europe, and what this could mean to Manila in terms of Washington’s support.

However, since President Donald Trump took office in January, both U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Hegseth have separately issued statements to assure Manila that Washington’s commitment to the defense of Philippine territorial waters remains “ironclad.”

Hegseth’s visit to Manila is a good opportunity to “reinforce these commitments amid doubts in its security policies,” according to Filipino security and geopolitical analyst Sherwin Ona.

“For the Philippines, it is crucial to get Washington’s renewed commitment and support for its armed forces modernization program,” Ona, who teaches at De La Salle University in Manila, told BenarNews. “The U.S. also plays a vital role in strengthening mini-lateral security arrangements.”

The Trump administration has begun holding talks with Moscow and Kyiv aimed at ending the Ukraine war.

“With the shift in U.S. policy in Europe, I think allies in the Indo-Pacific are anxious to hear the secretary’s view,” Ona said. “For Manila, how does this translate to actual assistance and presence in the SCS [South China Sea], Taiwan and the region.”

(Jason Gutierrez/BenarNews)

For geopolitical analyst Julio Amador III, Hegseth’s trip is a “good sign” showing that the new Trump administration is giving priority to America’s close ally in Southeast Asia.

Amador noted that President Trump had a “history” of supporting the alliance between the two nations. It dates back to 1951 when both sides signed the Mutual Defense Treaty, which calls on the two allies to support each other in times of war.

“Trump 2.0 is a welcome development for the Philippines for two reasons,” he said. “First, there is a sense of familiarity as the Philippines already has experience managing relations positively with the previous Trump administration.”

Amador also said that many of those in the Trump 2.0 cabinet were “hawkish on China” in disposition. The “deterrence umbrella against China is all expected to increase in intensity and volume,” Amador said. This includes the joint military drills that are annually carried out between the two nations.

Hegseth will arrive in the Philippines as Manila and Washington prepare for their annual large-scale military exercises here next month.

The Balikatan, or shoulder-to-shoulder, Exercise, which will kick off on April 21 and last until May 9, will feature a joint sail between the allies and Japan.

(Capt. Ryan DeBooy/U.S. Army)

There will also be live-fire exercises in the north, as well as an amphibious landing drill in the Batanes archipelago to defend it against imaginary invaders. Facing Taiwan, Batanes is the Philippines’ northernmost group of islands.

This week, the United States and the Philippine armies launched their own exercises, called Sabak. About 2,000 U.S. Army Pacific personnel joined their 3,000 Philippine Army counterparts in various drills designed to showcase their commitment to “safeguarding the Philippines’ territorial integrity.”

Second Typhon system

Meanwhile, Filipino military officials welcomed news that the U.S. was sending a second Typhon mid-range missile system to the Asia-Pacific region.

While exact details have yet to be released, U.S.-based Defense News said that the U.S. Army’s 3rd Multidomain Task Force was “readying its Typhon battery for deployment in the Pacific theater.”

In April 2024, the missile system was brought to the Philippines as part of joint military exercises with the United States.

It was the first time the U.S. had deployed the mid-range system in the Asia-Pacific region – a move that angered rival superpower China.

Beijing said the move “gravely threatens regional countries’ security, incites geopolitical confrontation and arouses high vigilance and concerns of countries in the region.”

BenarNews is an online news organization affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

Open source investigators analyzing Chinese social media this week detected the presence of a fleet of large ships, which they called “invasion barges” as they can be used to land heavy military vehicles and troops quickly onto beaches.

An analyst who used synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, satellite imaging technology, pinpointed the location of the three barges as Zhanjiang in Guangdong province, home of the Chinese South Sea Fleet.

An SAR sensor uses radar signals to capture images on the surface of the Earth, unlike optical sensors that can be blocked by obstacles such as clouds and vegetation.

Damien Symon, a geo-intelligence researcher at The Intel Lab, told Radio Free Asia that he could confirm that the exercises were held at Zhanjiang between March 4 and March 11.

It is unclear whether they are still going on.

Zhanjiang is 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) west of Taiwan and 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) northwest of the Philippines, territories whose governments have both traded barbs with Beijing as regional tensions rise.

(X/@detresfa)

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What are ‘invasion barges’?

In an image captured by Symon, three barges were seen in a long formation next to a beach.

Photos, apparently taken at the location and circulated on Chinese social media, show them lining up, forming a long “bridge” to the beach, over which tanks and other vehicles can land.

RFA was not able to independently verify the images available on WeChat and Weibo.

“By my math, they combine to about 850 meters in length,” said defense analyst Thomas Shugart from the Center for a New American Security.

“Instead of three different-size mobile causeways, they are combined into one long causeway, allowing a much longer reach, and access to deeper water,” Shugart said.

(WeChat/@观诲长郎)

The barges appear to have some pillars that analysts say could be lowered to make contact with the sea floor to support the vessels, making a stable platform in poor weather.

The rear of the barges is open, allowing other ships to dock and unload onto them.

When combined with roll-on/roll-off ferries that carry military vehicles from bases to target locations, the barges serve as a solution to the challenge of landing tanks and troops at many sites, even those previously considered unsuitable such as soft sandy or rocky beaches, as they can reach further to deliver the assets.

Shugart, who examined the “invasion barges,” said that China was building more of them.

There is no consensus among military strategists about if and when China would invade Taiwan, which it considers a breakaway province that needs to be ‘reunified’ with the mainland.

Taipei has rejected China’s overtures and threats, saying Taiwan has never been part of China.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Jakarta and Hanoi reached an agreement on the boundaries of the zones, called EEZs, in December 2022 after 12 years of negotiations. They had been locked in disputes over overlapping claims in waters surrounding the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea.

For the agreement to take effect, it needs to be ratified by both of their parliaments.

“We hope that our parliament will ratify it in April, after Eid al-Fitr, and their legislature is also expected to ratify it soon,” Prabowo told Vietnamese leader To Lam, who visited Jakarta this week.

Vietnam and Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country by population, elevated bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership during Lam’s visit, reflecting their closer cooperation.

Prabowo also said that he planned a reciprocal state visit to Vietnam soon, when he would sign an implementing agreement with his Vietnamese hosts, adding that he was confident that the deal would “bring prosperity to both our peoples.”

(BAY ISMOYO/AFP)

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Clear demarcation of maritime zones

The shared waters north and east of Natuna Islands saw intense confrontations between the law enforcement agencies of both Vietnam and Indonesia over the activities of Vietnamese fishermen. Indonesia accused them of unlawful encroachment and illegal fishing, and it detained and destroyed dozens of Vietnam’s fishing boats.

The two countries began negotiating on EEZ delimitation in 2010 and were engaged in more than a dozen rounds of talks before reaching an agreement.

An EEZ gives a state exclusive access to the natural resources in the waters and seabed, and a clear demarcation would help avoid misunderstanding and mismanagement, said Vietnamese South China Sea researcher Dinh Kim Phuc.

“The promised ratification of the agreement on EEZs sends a positive signal from both security and economic perspectives,” Phuc said. “Among the latest achievements in the bilateral relations, this in my opinion is the most important one.”

“It will also serve as a valuable precedent for ASEAN countries to settle maritime disputes between them via peaceful means,” the researcher added.

I Made Andi Arsana, a maritime law specialist at Gadjah Mada University, said the agreement clarifies fishing rights in the South China Sea.

“With a clear EEZ boundary, cross-border management and law enforcement become more straightforward,” Arsana said. “Before this, both countries had their own claims, making it hard to determine whether a fishing vessel had crossed the line. Now, with a legally recognized boundary, it’s easier to enforce regulations and address violations.”

He likened the situation to dealing with a neighbor without a fence.

“It’s difficult to say whether they’ve trespassed or taken something from your property,” he said.

“But once the boundary is set, we can confidently determine whether someone is fishing illegally in our waters.”

China has yet to comment on the Indonesian president’s statement. Both Vietnam’s and Indonesia’s EEZs lie within the “nine-dash line” that Beijing prints on its maps to demarcate its “historical rights” over almost 90% of the South China Sea.

Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this article.

Edited by Mike Firn.

BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA and BenarNews Staff.

Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu’s talks with Indonesia and Malaysia last week were also in line with the desire of all three countries to diversify markets and power centers beyond the Washington and Beijing binary, said Emil Avdaliani, an international relations expert at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia.

“Russia regards Southeast Asia as one of the pillars in the emerging multipolar world order. This means Moscow strives to foster political and economic ties with this vibrant geopolitical space,” Avdaliani told BenarNews.

Western sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine “served as a major driver to look eastward,” he said.

“Russia understands that Southeast Asia has been in a difficult position after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Moscow has been careful not to impose its vision on the region,” Avdaliani added.

“Russia [also] understands that Southeast Asia pursues its own interests, which implies [they follow a] multi-vector foreign policy, balancing among big actors and not choosing any sides.”

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Southeast Asia is by no means homogenous, which means that countries such as staunch U.S. ally the Philippines, and Singapore, which sanctioned Moscow, may balk at an expanded Russian footprint.

Russia’s renewed Southeast Asia engagement may also be uncomfortable for Manila because of Moscow’s relatively new partnership with Beijing, which many call “an alliance of convenience.”

For the Philippines, China is a thorn in the side because of its increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea, where both countries have contending territorial claims.

However, in a fractured – and fractious – geopolitical world order, nations firmly allied with Washington or Beijing may be realizing that they need to be self-reliant in safeguarding their interests.

For instance, Manila’s envoy to Washington, Jose Manuel Romualdez, told reporters earlier this week that countries need “to be always ready … to put up their own resources” to do what is best for themselves.

(Russian Mission to ASEAN via X)

Southeast Asia’s nations overall, though, have for long been seen as following expedient foreign policies, which is a draw for Russia, according to analyst Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma.

“Southeast Asian countries are less constrained by transatlantic or European political decisions,” the researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta told BenarNews.

“Most developing countries here can be quite pragmatic.”

Trade data reflects that pragmatism.

After a brief blip following Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after February 2022, Southeast Asia’s trade with Russia has been on the upswing.

Russia-ASEAN trade increased 10% to U.S. $17 billion in the January-September 2024 period, Moscow-owned news agency Sputnik cited a Russian minister as saying in November.

Trade between the two sides for the whole of 2023 totaled $15.8 billion, according to ASEAN data.

ASEAN member-states Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, all of which profess non-alignment, increased trade with Russia especially in 2024.

The Indonesian government struck a defiant note when asked about a deepening of ties with Russia.

As long as the association was mutually beneficial and “respectful,” there was no reason not to expand relations, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Rolliansyah Soemirat, said.

“Why not cooperate with Russia?” he told BenarNews.

“Indonesia is not intimidated by any country as long as our national interests are upheld.”

(Bashar Taleb/AFP)

Alexey Gruzdev, Russia’s minister of industry and trade, said the increase occurred because Russian businesses had “successfully adapted” to Western sanctions, Sputnik reported in November.

Analysts said there was more to it than businesses adapting.

Russia has capitalized on growing anti-West sentiment, particularly over the conflict in Gaza, to bolster its image in Southeast Asia, said Radityo Dharmaputra, a Europe and Eurasia expert at Indonesia’s Airlangga University.

Russia’s support for the Palestinian people is in line with Muslim-majority nations Indonesia and Malaysia, which have condemned what they say has been U.S. ally Israel’s disproportionate response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants.

“This narrative has been a core part of Russia’s strategy,” Radityo said.

“By promoting an anti-West … message, Russia has effectively won support, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia.”

‘Diversifying supply chains’

Additionally, some Southeast Asian nations proactively want to access alternate markets, which has also led to an uptick in trade with Russia, said Julia Roknifard, an international relations expert in Kuala Lumpur.

“It is about diversifying the supply chains away from the sole focus on the largest trade partners,” Roknifard, senior lecturer at the School of Law and Governance at Taylor’s University, told BenarNews.

“Russia, on the other hand, is interested in the products from Malaysia’s semiconductor industry.”

Following warnings by new U.S. President Donald Trump to tax imports, with a focus on countries America has a trade deficit with – especially Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia – a new market would help ease a potential trade slowdown in Southeast Asia.

The BRICS factor

Another Russian strategy to court Southeast Asia has been to market BRICS, a bloc of emerging economies it co-founded in 2006, as a pathway to creating a multipolar world.

BRICS is named after its founders Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as South Africa, which joined in 2010.

Increasing cooperation within the BRICS platform was a priority of Moscow’s foreign policy, TASS quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov as saying in April 2023.

During Russia’s chairmanship last year, BRICS announced that ASEAN members Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam would become its partner nations.

Indonesia then formally joined the grouping as a member in January, and expressed “gratitude to Russia” for facilitating its membership.

(LIM HUEY TENG/REUTERS)

A former Malaysian foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, said more ASEAN cooperation with BRICS was needed to “hedge” Southeast Asian nations’ relationship with major powers in an ever-shifting world order.

“Anyway, Russia is providing space for small and big nations to move forward from hegemony and operate under a new world order and multilateralism,” he told BenarNews.

US policy shift on Ukraine

Meanwhile, Washington reversing its adversarial stance towards Moscow over Ukraine would have implications across the world, including in Southeast Asia, analysts said.

Chester Cabalza, a security expert, spoke about the possible ramifications of this change in relation to the Philippines. Manila and Washington are bound by a longstanding mutual defense treaty.

“U.S. defense officials are still adamant on saving their defense ties with the Philippines,” Cabalza, who heads a Manila think-tank, International Development and Security Cooperation, told BenarNews.

Still, Washington’s shift has “gently reminded Manila to practice self-reliance,” he added.

Washington’s Ukraine pivot may also aid the expansion of Southeast Asia’s ties with Russia, indicated Radityo Dharmaputra, a Europe-Eurasia expert from Airlangga University

“There now appears to be a sense of relief in Southeast Asia regarding U.S.-Russia relations,” Radityo, head of the university’s Centre for European and Eurasian Studies, said to BenarNews.

“These nations seem to feel reassured that ties between Washington and Moscow have improved, allowing them to resume trade and diplomatic engagement.”

Iman Muttaqin Yusof in Kuala Lumpur, Tria Dianti in Jakarta, and Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report. BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Shailaja Neelakantan for BenarNews.

Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu’s talks with Indonesia and Malaysia last week were also in line with the desire of all three countries to diversify markets and power centers beyond the Washington and Beijing binary, said Emil Avdaliani, an international relations expert at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia.

“Russia regards Southeast Asia as one of the pillars in the emerging multipolar world order. This means Moscow strives to foster political and economic ties with this vibrant geopolitical space,” Avdaliani told BenarNews.

Western sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine “served as a major driver to look eastward,” he said.

“Russia understands that Southeast Asia has been in a difficult position after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Moscow has been careful not to impose its vision on the region,” Avdaliani added.

“Russia [also] understands that Southeast Asia pursues its own interests, which implies [they follow a] multi-vector foreign policy, balancing among big actors and not choosing any sides.”

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Southeast Asia is by no means homogenous, which means that countries such as staunch U.S. ally the Philippines, and Singapore, which sanctioned Moscow, may balk at an expanded Russian footprint.

Russia’s renewed Southeast Asia engagement may also be uncomfortable for Manila because of Moscow’s relatively new partnership with Beijing, which many call “an alliance of convenience.”

For the Philippines, China is a thorn in the side because of its increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea, where both countries have contending territorial claims.

However, in a fractured – and fractious – geopolitical world order, nations firmly allied with Washington or Beijing may be realizing that they need to be self-reliant in safeguarding their interests.

For instance, Manila’s envoy to Washington, Jose Manuel Romualdez, told reporters earlier this week that countries need “to be always ready … to put up their own resources” to do what is best for themselves.

(Russian Mission to ASEAN via X)

Southeast Asia’s nations overall, though, have for long been seen as following expedient foreign policies, which is a draw for Russia, according to analyst Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma.

“Southeast Asian countries are less constrained by transatlantic or European political decisions,” the researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta told BenarNews.

“Most developing countries here can be quite pragmatic.”

Trade data reflects that pragmatism.

After a brief blip following Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after February 2022, Southeast Asia’s trade with Russia has been on the upswing.

Russia-ASEAN trade increased 10% to U.S. $17 billion in the January-September 2024 period, Moscow-owned news agency Sputnik cited a Russian minister as saying in November.

Trade between the two sides for the whole of 2023 totaled $15.8 billion, according to ASEAN data.

ASEAN member-states Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, all of which profess non-alignment, increased trade with Russia especially in 2024.

The Indonesian government struck a defiant note when asked about a deepening of ties with Russia.

As long as the association was mutually beneficial and “respectful,” there was no reason not to expand relations, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Rolliansyah Soemirat, said.

“Why not cooperate with Russia?” he told BenarNews.

“Indonesia is not intimidated by any country as long as our national interests are upheld.”

(Bashar Taleb/AFP)

Alexey Gruzdev, Russia’s minister of industry and trade, said the increase occurred because Russian businesses had “successfully adapted” to Western sanctions, Sputnik reported in November.

Analysts said there was more to it than businesses adapting.

Russia has capitalized on growing anti-West sentiment, particularly over the conflict in Gaza, to bolster its image in Southeast Asia, said Radityo Dharmaputra, a Europe and Eurasia expert at Indonesia’s Airlangga University.

Russia’s support for the Palestinian people is in line with Muslim-majority nations Indonesia and Malaysia, which have condemned what they say has been U.S. ally Israel’s disproportionate response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants.

“This narrative has been a core part of Russia’s strategy,” Radityo said.

“By promoting an anti-West … message, Russia has effectively won support, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia.”

‘Diversifying supply chains’

Additionally, some Southeast Asian nations proactively want to access alternate markets, which has also led to an uptick in trade with Russia, said Julia Roknifard, an international relations expert in Kuala Lumpur.

“It is about diversifying the supply chains away from the sole focus on the largest trade partners,” Roknifard, senior lecturer at the School of Law and Governance at Taylor’s University, told BenarNews.

“Russia, on the other hand, is interested in the products from Malaysia’s semiconductor industry.”

Following warnings by new U.S. President Donald Trump to tax imports, with a focus on countries America has a trade deficit with – especially Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia – a new market would help ease a potential trade slowdown in Southeast Asia.

The BRICS factor

Another Russian strategy to court Southeast Asia has been to market BRICS, a bloc of emerging economies it co-founded in 2006, as a pathway to creating a multipolar world.

BRICS is named after its founders Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as South Africa, which joined in 2010.

Increasing cooperation within the BRICS platform was a priority of Moscow’s foreign policy, TASS quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov as saying in April 2023.

During Russia’s chairmanship last year, BRICS announced that ASEAN members Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam would become its partner nations.

Indonesia then formally joined the grouping as a member in January, and expressed “gratitude to Russia” for facilitating its membership.

(LIM HUEY TENG/REUTERS)

A former Malaysian foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, said more ASEAN cooperation with BRICS was needed to “hedge” Southeast Asian nations’ relationship with major powers in an ever-shifting world order.

“Anyway, Russia is providing space for small and big nations to move forward from hegemony and operate under a new world order and multilateralism,” he told BenarNews.

US policy shift on Ukraine

Meanwhile, Washington reversing its adversarial stance towards Moscow over Ukraine would have implications across the world, including in Southeast Asia, analysts said.

Chester Cabalza, a security expert, spoke about the possible ramifications of this change in relation to the Philippines. Manila and Washington are bound by a longstanding mutual defense treaty.

“U.S. defense officials are still adamant on saving their defense ties with the Philippines,” Cabalza, who heads a Manila think-tank, International Development and Security Cooperation, told BenarNews.

Still, Washington’s shift has “gently reminded Manila to practice self-reliance,” he added.

Washington’s Ukraine pivot may also aid the expansion of Southeast Asia’s ties with Russia, indicated Radityo Dharmaputra, a Europe-Eurasia expert from Airlangga University

“There now appears to be a sense of relief in Southeast Asia regarding U.S.-Russia relations,” Radityo, head of the university’s Centre for European and Eurasian Studies, said to BenarNews.

“These nations seem to feel reassured that ties between Washington and Moscow have improved, allowing them to resume trade and diplomatic engagement.”

Iman Muttaqin Yusof in Kuala Lumpur, Tria Dianti in Jakarta, and Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report. BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Shailaja Neelakantan for BenarNews.

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine authorities accused a Chinese government-owned broadcaster of deceptive messaging and propaganda after it reported that a Philippine ship had deliberately engaged in acts to pollute South China Sea waters.

China Global Television Network, or CGTN, released a video Saturday showing smoke emanating from the BRP Sierra Madre at the contested Second Thomas Shoal. The report said the smoke was caused by trash being burned by Filipino marines stationed aboard the rusting Philippine Navy ship.

“Heavy smoke was seen from an apparent burning activity on a grounded Philippine military vessel on Friday,” CGTN said on Facebook.

“The footage highlights a series of environmentally damaging activities onboard, which could pose a serious threat to the ecosystem at Ren’ai Jiao,” the report said, using the Chinese name for the shoal. To Filipinos, Second Thomas Shoal is known as Ayungin Shoal.

“A report released in July last year suggests that the vessel has gravely damaged the diversity, stability, and sustainability of the coral reef ecosystem in the area,” it added.

Philippine authorities on Tuesday refuted the Chinese state media report that the Filipino crew was allegedly causing pollution, and dismissed the claim as propaganda.

“It’s part of the deceptive messaging of the Chinese Communist Party,” Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, the Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, told reporters. Manila refers to South China Sea waters within its exclusive economic zone as the West Philippine Sea.

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The Sierra Madre is a World War II-era ship that Manila ran aground on the shoal in 1999 to mark out the Philippines’ territorial claim and serve as its military outpost in the disputed waters.

The shoal is located within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, or EEZ. Manila runs regular rotation-and-resupply missions to the ship manned by Philippine marines.

Trinidad said Filipino troops had burned “combustible materials” on the BRP Sierra Madre on Feb. 28 as part of a fire drill.

However, strong winds caused the fire to spread. “But they were able to put everything in control,” Trinidad said, referring to the troops aboard the ship.

“There was no damage to the environment, all the men aboard the ship are safe. The exercise was conducted successfully,” Trinidad said. He said fire drills such as this are conducted aboard navy ships at least once every month.

“There was no problem. The men of the ship are always prepared to respond to any eventuality to keep everything under control,” said Trinidad.

(AFP)

“The battlefield is the cognitive domain or the minds of the Filipino people. [It’s] designed to shape the perception of Filipinos. This is also called malign influence,” he said.

At publication time, neither CGTN, China’s foreign ministry or embassy in Manila had responded to the latest statements from Filipino officials.

‘Totally absurd’

Meanwhile, Trinidad said claims circulating on Chinese social media platforms such as Rednote and Weibo, claimed that Palawan once belonged to China and that the Philippines should return it to its rival claimant in the South China Sea.

(Douyin)

Palawan, the posts claimed, was once named Zheng He Island, in honor of a Chinese explorer. However, although Zheng He’s existence and travels to Southeast Asia are well documented, there has never been a historical account that he visited the Philippine province.

“Such statements about Palawan are baseless. They are bereft of legal references,” Trinidad said.

“They are beyond common sense. In short, totally absurd.”

Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Año agreed.

“These assertions are outright fabrications intended to distort history, deceive the public and challenge the Philippines’ sovereignty over its lawful and internationally recognized territory,” Año said in a statement.

Año urged Filipinos to remain vigilant against disinformation campaigns and “rely on verified historical and legal sources rather than propaganda designed to advance geopolitical agenda at the expense of truth.”

He said Philippine authorities were tracing who started the post. Año also said that there had never been a “historical record or legal precedent” to support the claim.

“Palawan has always been and will always remain an integral part of the Republic of the Philippines,” Año said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Año said that even if Zheng did in fact visit Palawan, this “does not equate to ownership, just as the voyages of other explorers do not alter the sovereignty of nations today.”

While the “false narratives” did not come from official government sites, Año said they appeared to be part of a “broader effort to undermine Philippine sovereignty and manipulate public perception both in the Philippines and China.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

As concerns continue to emerge over China’s “unusual” naval exercises in the Tasman Sea, raising eyebrows from New Zealand and Australia, the Cook Islands government was questioned for an update in Parliament.

This follows the newly established bilateral relations between the Cook Islands and China through a five-year agreement and Prime Minister Mark Brown’s accusations of the New Zealand media and experts looking down on the Cook Islands.

A Chinese Navy convoy held two live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand on Friday and Saturday, prompting passenger planes to change course mid-flight and pressuring officials in both countries.

• READ MORE: Eugene Doyle: Yellow Peril! Red Peril! ‘We cannot hide anymore’. Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea.
• Cook Islands needs to ‘stand on our own two feet,’ says Brown – wins confidence vote
• Other China in Pacific reports

Akaoa MP Robert Heather queried the Prime Minister whether the government had spoken to Chinese embassy officials in New Zealand for a response in this breach of Australian waters?

“One thing I do know is that just in the recent weeks, New Zealand navy was part of an exercise with the Australians and Americans conducting naval exercises in the South China Sea and perhaps that’s why China decided to exercise naval exercises in the international waters off the coast of Australia,” he said.

“And I also know that in the last two weeks, the government of Australia and China signed a security treaty between the two countries.

“However in due course, we may be informed more about these naval exercises that these countries conduct in international waters off each other’s coasts.”

According to Brown, he had not been briefed by any government whether it’s New Zealand, Australia, or China about these developments.

Asking for an update
He added that while the Minister of Foreign Affairs Elikana was currently in the Solomon Islands attending a forum on fisheries together with other ministers of the Pacific Region, he would ask him about whether he could make any inquiries to find out whether the government could be updated or briefed on this issue.

Meanwhile, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said after a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, that lack of sufficient warning from China about the live-fire exercises was a “failure” in the New Zealand-China relationship.

A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defence, Wu Qian explained that China’s actions were entirely in accordance with international law and established practices and would not impact on aviation safety.

He added that the live-fire training was conducted with repeated safety notices that had been issued in advance.

Republished with permission from the Cook Islands News.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

TAIPEI, Taiwan – China has set up a live-fire exercise area 40 nautical miles (75 kilometers) off the coast of the Taiwan port city of Kaohsiung without warning in a provocation to the region’s security that posed a risk to air and sea transport, Taiwan’s ministry of defense said Wednesday.

It said Beijing “blatantly violated international norms by unilaterally designating” the drill zone.

It strongly condemned the zone and said in a statement it had “immediately dispatched naval, air and land forces to monitor and take appropriate measures” after learning of it via “temporary radio broadcast” between the two sides in the area.

As a normal practice, relevant authorities of coastal countries are obliged to issue prior warnings to vessels that may enter the exercise areas in order to avoid accidents.

“This move not only poses a high risk to the navigation safety of international flights and ships at sea, but is also a blatant provocation to regional security and stability,” it said.

(Li Bingyu/AP)

The Taiwan ministry also said that in the 24 hours up to Wednesday morning, it had detected 32 sorties by Chinese aircraft and warships near Taiwan. Twenty-two of them crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait which serves as the de-facto border between the island and the Chinese mainland.

On Tuesday, the Taiwan Coast Guard detained a Chinese crewed civilian vessel it suspected of cutting a communications cable off Taiwan’s coast. The island’s government said it couldn’t rule out that the Togo-registered tanker was engaging in “gray zone” tactics for Beijing.

The Chinese foreign ministry on Wednesday declined to comment on the zone for exercises off Taiwan.

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China has been holding live-fire exercises across the region over the past week.

On Monday, it began shooting live ammunition in a four-day drill in the Gulf of Tonkin shared with Vietnam, days after Hanoi released a map defining its territory in the gulf.

(Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

Last Friday, several commercial flights between Australia and New Zealand had to be diverted as Chinese warships conducted live-fire shooting in the Tasman sea. The same flotilla held another exercise a day after near New Zealand.

Both drills were held in international waters but Canberra complained that Beijing did not provide it with adequate notice.

On Sunday, China’s defense ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said that Australian complaints were “hyped up” and “inconsistent with the facts”.

The past week’s exercises around the region are a clear example of saber rattling according to regional specialist Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor at Australia’s University of New South Wales.

“Given China’s continued bullying of the Philippines, Beijing is sending a message to regional states as well as the Trump Administration that Beijing will defend its sovereign rights and interests whenever they are challenged,” he told Radio Free Asia.

Edited by Mike Firn.

Updated with comment from Carl Thayer.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

The two officials met amid a flurry of visits to Manila in recent days by foreign allies and new partners in broadened military cooperation with the Philippines. These included a visit by Adm. Samuel Paparo, the top U.S. military officer in the Pacific, and a port-of-call by the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its carrier group.

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani arrived in Manila over the weekend, two months after the Philippine Senate ratified a new defense treaty with Tokyo, whose military forces had occupied the Philippines during World War II.

“[Philippine Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr.] and I firmly concurred that the security environment surrounding us is becoming increasingly severe and that it is necessary for the two countries as strategic partners to further enhance defense cooperation and collaboration in order to maintain peace and stability in Indo-Pacific amid such a situation,” Nakatani said during a joint press conference with Teodoro in Manila on Monday.

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Both Manila and Tokyo should “deepen bilateral cooperation” with a sense of expediency, Nakatani said.

Teodoro said Nakatani’s two-day trip was meant to advance bilateral defense engagements after the Philippines ratified the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA). It allows for larger-scale joint military drills and paves the way for military personnel to take part in security operations, including coordinated security patrols.

The pact, however, still has to be ratified by the Japanese parliament before both nations “get to the ground running at full speed,” Teodoro said.

“This meeting was an exchange of views on regional security issues on the Indo-Pacific, the situation in the East China Sea and the South China Sea and most importantly on our shared initiatives moving forward, not only on bilateral security enhancements, but also in promoting a sustainable, economically beneficial and defense-sustained defense industry partnership,” Teodoro said.

Both Manila and Tokyo agreed to boost operational cooperation, start a strategic dialogue between “high-level operational action officers” and deepen information sharing, Nakatani said.

“We also agreed to commence discussion between defense authorities on military information protection mechanisms,” he also said.

(Jeoffrey Maitem/BenarNews)

Nakatani visited two key Philippine military sites in the north of Luzon, the main Philippine island, including Basa Air Base.

Basa is one of the nine Philippine military bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between Manila and its long-time defense ally, Washington.

First signed in 2014, the EDCA allows the U.S. military to build and operate facilities inside Philippine bases for use by American and Filipino forces. While the United States is barred from establishing permanent bases here, analysts said the pact has allowed some flexibility in cooperation – including the hosting of the Typhon mid-range missile system – raising strong protests from China.

The EDCA supplemented the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, which provides legal cover for large-scale joint military drills in the Philippines between the two long-time allies.

Regional security concerns

The Japanese minister’s trip to Manila came after the unprecedented visit of France’s lone nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships last week after the French navy ships took part in combat drills with Filipino forces in the South China Sea.

The Charles De Gaulle, accompanied by three destroyers and an oil tanker, docked in Manila and in Subic Bay. In 2016, France and the Philippines signed a defense and security cooperation agreement, and have been building on it since.

Adm. Paparo, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific command based in Hawaii, meanwhile met with Philippine officials in Manila last week.

He was there to discuss regional security issues and underscore Washington’s commitment to the Philippine military “to enhance maritime domain awareness and capacity building in order to counter illegal, coercive, aggressive, and deceptive activities,” according to a statement from his office on Sunday.

‘Very timely juncture’

“The visit by the Japanese defense minister is very important, coming at a very timely juncture, when the Philippines is engaged in outreach to like-minded partners,” said Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst and lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila.

“The timing in fact is very important, especially after a series of provocations by China within the West Philippine Sea,” he told BenarNews, using Manila’s name for South China Sea waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

“This is not just symbolic, but an opportunity to deepen or broaden the already strengthening Philippine-Japan security partnership.”

(Jojo Riñoza/BenarNews)

Japan’s strategy is to signal its emergence as a “major power broker” in the region, security analyst Chester Cabalza told BenarNews.

“Tokyo has felt the intensity of Beijing’s impounding presence in its own coastlines, and one way of reducing the tension is to ally with nations experiencing similar strategic territorial dilemmas with China,” said Cabalza, who heads International Development and Security Cooperation, a think-tank in Manila.

Japan, unlike the Philippines, does not have territorial claims that overlap with China’s expansive ones in the South China Sea. But Tokyo has a separate dispute with Beijing over a group of uninhabited Senkaku Islands (also known as the Diaoyu Islands) in the East China Sea.

“Japan has to ink pacts with other middle powers in the region,” Cabalza said.

“By this way, China will be reprimanded to follow maritime rules-based order in the South China Sea.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news outlet.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez and Jojo Riñoza for BenarNews.

The warning came as Vietnam issued a formal map defining the baseline to demarcate its territory in the gulf. Though neither side linked their action to that of the other, it was unlikely to be a coincidence, some observers said.

China’s exercise comes amid the latest wrangle between the neighbors over Vietnam’s island building in the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea.

A baseline under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, is the line that runs along the coast of a country, from which the extent of the territorial sea and other maritime zones is measured.

In March 2024 China released its baseline in the northern part of the Gulf of Tonkin, deemed by analysts as “excessive.” Radio Free Asia was the first media outlet to report in April 2024 that Vietnam was considering its own baseline amid concern that China may seek to expand its maritime zones.

(RFA)

The Chinese baseline at some points encroaches about 50 nautical miles (93 kilometers) into international waters, according to analysts.

The U.S. military, which promotes freedom of navigation across the world, criticized China’s baseline, saying it may provide a pretext for China to “unlawfully impede navigational rights and freedoms guaranteed to all nations, including transit passage through the Hainan Strait.”

Chinese drills not ‘a pure coincidence’

“The establishment of the baseline in the Gulf of Tonkin aims to uphold Vietnam’s rights and obligations,” the Vietnamese foreign ministry said in a statement, “It provides a robust legal basis for safeguarding and exercising Vietnam’s sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction.”

China has yet to comment on its neighbor’s announcement but some Vietnam watchers said China’s live-fire drills appeared to be a response to Vietnam’s baseline.

“Although the exercise area off northwest Hainan island is relatively far from Vietnam’s waters, the timing seems too close to be a pure coincidence,” said Song Phan, a maritime researcher.

The new baseline that runs along Vietnam’s coast “conforms strictly to UNCLOS unlike the Chinese baseline,” he said.

Hanoi and Beijing in 2000 signed a Delimitation Agreement to demarcate their shares of the gulf from the mainland of Vietnam and China in the North to the mouth of the gulf in the South.

The two countries, however, have yet to renegotiate a joint fishery cooperation agreement in the Gulf of Tonkin after the old one expired in 2020.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Some other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, meanwhile, are trying to maintain good relations with their big neighbor to the north, whose economic and political influence is only growing in importance, while protecting their interests in the disputed waterway.

Reporters from RFA and BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news organization, look at how three countries on the South China Sea are approaching relations with China.

INDONESIA: Growing openness toward China

In November 2024, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, stunned South China Sea watchers with a sentence in a joint statement issued in China on his first overseas trip since becoming president.

(China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The seemingly innocuous line explained that Jakarta and Beijing had reached an “important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims” in the South China Sea.

But analysts were quick to point out that by acknowledging overlapping maritime boundaries, Prabowo and his officials had effectively acknowledged the legitimacy of China’s claims, something Indonesia had never done before.

Indonesia had always insisted that China’s so-called nine-dash line, which it uses on its maps to claim historic rights over most of the South China Sea, has no legal basis, as seen in a note verbale to the United Nations in May 2020.

Indonesia realized the mistake and issued a correction two days later, saying mutual recognition of differences and disputes does not equal accepting the other side’s legitimacy and China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea still lacked legal basis.

Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in Jakarta said that nevertheless, there has been “a shift toward a closer relationship that could reduce Jakarta’s assertiveness in the South China Sea under President Prabowo Subianto.”

China is Indonesia’s largest trading partner and one of its biggest sources of foreign direct investment, and expanding economic ties have been a major factor in Jakarta’s decision-making.

This year, Indonesia became the first Southeast Asia member of the BRICS bloc led by China.

Raden Mokhamad Luthfi, a defense analyst at Al Azhar University Indonesia said that there was growing openness toward China, not just in trade and investment but also in security cooperation.

Prabowo’s dominant role in foreign policy appears to have sidelined Indonesia’s ministry of foreign affairs, he said.

“I am concerned that under Prabowo’s leadership, Indonesian diplomats may have less space to provide input and guidance on how the country’s foreign policy should be shaped,” Luthfi said.

Waffaa noted a sense that “Indonesia is increasingly practicing self-censorship when dealing with China.”

“One possible explanation is China’s proactive diplomatic approach, which includes strong responses, or even retaliatory measures, against criticism,” he said. “This makes Indonesia more cautious, possibly fearing economic repercussions and as a result, it has become difficult to openly address concerns over sovereignty and international law.”

Indonesia is one of the founding members of ASEAN and long served as its de-facto leader, playing a crucial role in mediating regional crises. Analysts warned that its leadership in the group on the South China Sea issue would wane if it stopped championing international legal norms.

(BAY ISMOYO/AFP)

Indonesia has repeatedly said that it is not a party to territorial disputes in the South China Sea. But its law enforcement agencies have had to deal with encroachment and illegal fishing, including by Chinese vessels in the waters off the Natuna islands.

A major question now is whether warming relations will keep encroachments at bay.

MALAYSIA: Aligning with China’s preferences?

Malaysia’s leaders have always seen China as an important neighbor and partner with which they have to navigate a complex relationship.

The two countries established a comprehensive partnership in 2013 and China is Malaysia’s top economic partner, with trade worth more than US$200 billion in 2022. In comparison, Malaysia-U.S. trade was US$73 billion in the same year.

Since coming to power in 2022, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has made it clear that fostering good ties with China is one of his priorities.

(Yves Herman/Reuters)

Regarding territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Malaysia’s long-standing policy has been to protect its sovereignty via international law. Malaysia has never recognized China’s nine-dash line and even ordered the removal of a scene from an animated movie that showed it.

Yet some of the prime minister’s comments have stirred controversy.

In March 2024, in a speech at the Australian National University in Canberra, Anwar said that countries needed to put themselves in China’s shoes and trying to block its economic and technological advancement would only bring grievances.

In November, after meeting President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Anwar said that Malaysia was “ready to negotiate” on the South China Sea, suggesting bilateral negotiations over conflicting claims in the waters off the coast of Sabah and Sarawak in East Malaysia.

At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January, once again the Malaysian leader stated that China should not be singled out for the tensions in the South China Sea, striking a clear pro-Beijing tone.

“Malaysia’s desire to exclude other countries, such as Australia, Japan and the United States, from South China Sea disputes aligns with China’s preferences,” wrote Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“It also helps China’s behind-the-scenes efforts to influence negotiations with ASEAN on a code of conduct for the South China Sea,” Graham added.

China and ASEAN have been discussing the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea for years but have yet to reach a final agreement.

In February, during a trip to Brunei, Anwar called for the code to be completed “as soon as possible” to address escalating tensions in the waterway. Malaysia is the ASEAN chair this year.

“I believe Malaysia prefers to settle the issue among the stakeholders through dialogue and engagement without any intervention from outside,” said Lee Pei May, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the International Islamic University Malaysia.

“If there is intervention from outside powers, I believe the situation would be chaotic,” Lee said. “The U.S., U.K. and other powers, they are not directly related to the dispute so they are considered outside powers.”

The U.S. and its regional allies, for their part, argue that they are also Pacific nations, and have interest in a free and open Indo-Pacific.

(Asif Hassan/AFP)

Some analysts said that the Anwar administration, despite being criticized for its seemingly pro-Beijing stance, had not compromised Malaysia’s claims in the South China Sea.

“To be sure, Malaysia has adopted a very different approach to the South China Sea dispute than either Vietnam or the Philippines,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Anwar’s policy still “allows Malaysia to maintain close ties with China while asserting its territorial claims and protecting its sovereign rights,” he said.

VIETNAM: A balancing act

On Feb. 19, Beijing for the first time officially and publicly denounced Vietnam’s island building in the South China Sea.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that China opposed construction on “illegally occupied islands and reefs,” referring to the features that Vietnam began reclaiming in the 2020s.

It is not a secret that Vietnam wants to strengthen defenses against China’s dominance in the Spratly islands and the island building has received strong support from the Vietnamese public as the sign of a refusal to compromise on sovereignty.

“If you listen to leaders’ speeches on both sides, Vietnam-China relations appear to be warm and flourishing,” said Dinh Kim Phuc, a South China Sea researcher. “But Hanoi’s developments in the South China Sea show that they don’t really trust each other very much.”

(Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

With China’s first public protest against the island building, it seems that an “informal understanding” with Vietnam is over, noted Bill Hayton, an associate fellow at the British think tank Chatham House. This tacit compromise meant that for a few years Vietnam did not look for oil and gas inside China’s nine-dash line and China said nothing about Vietnam’s island building, Hayton said.

There may be several explanations for China’s objection but analysts believe Vietnam’s expanding ties with the United States is a major factor.

Looking at overseas trips by Vietnam’s leaders, including the new Communist Party chief To Lam, Vietnam also seems to “emphasize the values of ASEAN and the West” in its strategic thinking, according to Phuc.

Vietnam has been reported as wanting to elevate ties with fellow ASEAN members Indonesia and Singapore to comprehensive strategic partnerships, the highest level of bilateral relations, this year.

But that doesn’t mean that a decoupling from China would happen any time soon, analysts say, as Vietnam’s economy depends greatly on Chinese trade and investment.

On the same day that China criticized Vietnam’s “illegal occupation” in the South China Sea, Vietnam’s parliament approved a multi-billion-dollar railway running from the Chinese border to the South China Sea. Part of the funding is expected to come from China, despite some public unease about the potential debt.

Gestures by General Secretary To and other leaders that can be seen as “pro-West” or “anti-China” are deemed as “merely populist” by Dang Dinh Manh, a Vietnamese dissident lawyer now living in the U.S.

“They need to appease the general domestic public, which is increasingly nationalistic,” Manh said, adding that in his opinion the Hanoi leadership needed to appease China, too, and how to strike a balance can be “a serious task”, especially when it comes to sovereignty in the South China Sea.

Edited by Mike Firn

Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta and Iman Muttaqin Yusof in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this article.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA and BenarNews Staff.

On Feb. 11, a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft experienced an “unsafe and unprofessional interaction” with a Chinese J-16 fighter aircraft, the Australian Defence Force, or defense department, said in a statement.

The P-8A Poseidon was conducting a routine maritime surveillance patrol in the South China Sea at the time, it said.

Australia said the Chinese aircraft had released flares close to the Australian aircraft.

“This was an unsafe and unprofessional maneuver that posed a risk to the aircraft and personnel,” the Australian department said.

No crew member was injured in the incident and the aircraft was not damaged but Australia said it “expects all countries, including China, to operate their militaries in a safe and professional manner.”

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles told Sky News that the Chinese J-16 was “so close that there’s no way you could have been able to ensure that the flares did not hit the P-8.”

“Had any of those flares hit the P-8, that would have definitely had the potential for significant damage to that aircraft,” he said.

Flares, when fired at an aircraft at close proximity, could get into the engine and cause the plane to crash. Yet they are regularly used by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force against foreign assets.

In May 2024, Australia protested to China after one of its fighter jets intercepted and dropped flares close to an Australian helicopter in international waters in the Yellow Sea.

In late October 2023, a Chinese warplane also used flares against a Canadian shipborne maritime helicopter over the South China Sea.

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Disputed Paracel islands

China rejected Australia’s latest complaint, saying the Australian military aircraft “deliberately intruded into China’s airspace over Xisha Qundao.”

The archipelago that China calls Xisha, known internationally as the Paracel islands, is claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan.

It has been under Beijing’s control since 1974 when Chinese troops took it from South Vietnam in a battle that killed 74 Vietnamese sailors.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said the Australian aircraft’s operation “violated China’s sovereignty and harmed our national security.”

“China’s response to warn away the airplane was legitimate, lawful, professional and restrained,” Guo said. “Our message is quite clear: stop the provocations and infringement on China’s sovereignty, and stop turning the South China Sea into a less peaceful and stable place.”

Defense Ministry Spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang accused Australia of “spreading false narratives.”

“It should be pointed out that the Australian military aircraft ignored the main road in the South China Sea and intruded into other people’s homes,” Zhang told reporters.

“China’s expulsion of them is completely reasonable, legal and beyond reproach, and is a legitimate defense of national sovereignty and security,” he added.

The P-8A Poseidon’s surveillance patrol is a normal activity that does not violate any regulations, said Abdul Rahman Yaacob, research fellow at Australia’s Lowy Institute think tank.

“Australia has an interest in an open and free maritime domain as it is an island,” Rahman told Radio Free Asia. “Also the Paracel archipelago is a disputed territory, China’s claims over it were rejected by an international tribunal in 2016 so legally China doesn’t have the right to respond aggressively like that.”

Separately from the protest, the Australian defense department issued a note on Chinese vessels operating in waters to the north of Australia.

(Australian Defence Force)

PLA naval task group near Australia

The department said it could confirm the Chinese warships were the PLA Navy’s Jiangkai-class frigate Hengyang, the Renhai cruiser Zunyi and the Fuchi-class replenishment vessel Weishanhu.

The Henyang is a guided-missile frigate carrying medium-range air defense and anti-submarine missiles, as well as sophisticated radar and sonar systems. The Zunyi is a stealth guided-missile destroyer of the Type 055 class, considered one of the most capable surface combatants in the world.

The three ships are believed not to have intruded into Australian territorial waters and only transited its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ – the sea boundary that extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the coast.

“They could be trying to familiarize themselves with the waters around Australia,” said Lowy’s Abdul Rahman Yaacob. “But the most likely reason is to test Australian surveillance capabilities, such as how fast can Australia detect their movements.”

Rahman said Chinese submarine drones had long been suspected to be operating in Indonesian and Philippine waters.

“I would not discount that in the future we may find Chinese submarine drones operating close to or within Australia’s EEZ.” he said.

In 2022, Chinese spy ship Haiwangxing was tracked within 50 nautical miles of Australia’s west coast after crossing into its EEZ, setting off alarms.

In the latest development, U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. Samuel Paparo is expected to visit Canberra next week, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, adding that Paparo is the man in charge of U.S. preparations for any conflict with China.

New Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, said that his country was shifting military priorities from Europe’s security to deterring war with China in the Pacific, according to media reports.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Indonesia’s ministry of defense said this month that the House of Representatives approved the offer made by Japan in line with the ministry’s development policy and non-pact defense international cooperation.

The vessel transfer will help strengthen maritime defense and improve the Indonesian navy’s capabilities, the ministry said.

Tokyo and Jakarta have also been discussing a plan to jointly develop a naval ship with Japanese technology, according to media reports.

The 18-meter (60-foot), aluminum-hulled high-speed patrol vessels are designed to operate in waters and coastal areas. Their primary role would be inter-island patrolling, especially in waters around Nusantara – Indonesia’s new capital in East Kalimantan province.

“The patrol boat transfer serves a dual purpose – bolstering Indonesia’s naval capabilities and advancing Japan’s diplomatic efforts in the region, particularly amid its rivalry with China,” Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, told BenarNews, an affiliate of Radio Free Asia.

Waffaa said the vessels would play a crucial role in monitoring Indonesia’s archipelagic sea lanes, particularly the Makassar Strait, which directly connects to the Celebes and Sulu seas.

These are key areas for maritime security not only for Indonesia but also globally due to threats such as piracy and terrorism.

“The area is also strategically significant as a potential route for submarines from both China and Australia,” the analyst said.

Crucial role

Japan considers Indonesia to be playing “a pivotal role in ensuring stability of the Indo-Pacific region, facing important sea lanes,” said the Japanese foreign ministry in a statement.

As comprehensive strategic partners, Japan and Indonesia share fundamental values and principles, the ministry said, adding that the high-speed patrol boats will “contribute to enhancing monitoring and surveillance capabilities of Indonesia as a key archipelagic country in the region.”

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Raden Mokhamad Luthfi, a defense analyst at Al Azhar University Indonesia, said that the deployment of the patrol boats near Indonesia’s new capital signals Japan’s support for enhancing maritime security in the region.

“The advantage of these small vessels lies in their ability to navigate narrow and shallow waters, making them particularly suitable for deployment near Kalimantan, which is crisscrossed by numerous rivers,” Luthfi said.

Their sleek and lightweight design, combined with powerful engines, allows for high-speed maneuvering and zigzag pursuits.

“This makes them suitable for special operations missions, particularly for Indonesia’s elite navy unit, the Frogmen Command, known as Kopaska,” Luthfi said.

Expanded cooperation

Japan is also planning to transfer a new offshore patrol vessel worth 9 million yen (US$60,000) to Indonesia’s maritime security agency, or Bakamla, in 2028.

During his visit to Indonesia in January, Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and his counterpart, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, discussed a proposal to jointly develop a warship for Indonesia with Japan’s technology.

The plan was first put together in 2021 but it has stalled.

(Indonesian Navy)

“Japan has a vested interest in maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific and views Indonesia as a key partner,” said Khairul Fahmi, co-founder of the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies.

“With rising tensions in the South China Sea and China’s growing influence in the region, Japan wants to ensure that Indonesia has stronger maritime security while also maintaining a positive bilateral relationship with Tokyo,” Fahmi said.

Both Japan and Indonesia are embroiled in maritime disputes with China.

Japan and China both claim sovereignty over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea while Indonesia and China have rival claims to the Natuna islands in the South China Sea.

(Master Sgt. Chris Hibben/U.S. Navy)

In another development, defense minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin held a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth upon the latter’s appointment, the Indonesian defense ministry said.

Sjafrie stressed the importance of strengthening defense cooperation between Indonesia and the United States, it said.

U.S. troops are due to take part in the multilateral Komodo naval exercise in eastern Indonesia this month.

RFA Staff in Taipei contributed to this story.

Edited by Mike Firn.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Pizaro Gozali Idrus for BenarNews and RFA Staff.

The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, said that between November 2023 and June 2024, Hanoi created 280 hectares (692 acres) of new land across 10 of 27 features it occupies in the Spratly archipelago.

AMTI also reported that three to four runways might be planned for different features.

“Three years from when it first began, Vietnam is still surprising observers with the ever-increasing scope of its dredging and landfill in the Spratly Islands,” the think tank said.

Hanoi’s island building program stemmed from a Communist Party resolution in 2007 on maritime strategy toward the year 2020, according to Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

The resolution set out an integrated strategy to develop coastal areas, an exclusive economic zone, and 27 land features in the South China Sea with the objective that this area would contribute between 53% and 55% of the gross domestic product by 2020, Thayer said.

(Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

It was only in 2021 that Vietnam began a modest program of landfill and infrastructure construction on its features in the Spratly Islands, Thayer said.

By that time, China had completed the construction of its “Big Three” artificial islands in the South China Sea – Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs – and equipped them with runways and military facilities.

The island-building program focuses mainly on the so-called integrated marine economy, the analyst told Radio Free Asia, noting that there are only modest defenses such as pillboxes, trenches and gun emplacements on the newly developed features.

Risk of tension

Vietnam has long been wary of causing tension with China but its increasing assertiveness had led to a re-think in Hanoi.

“Vietnam has not placed major weapon systems on its land features that would threaten China’s artificial islands,” Thayer said.

“But no doubt the rise in Chinese aggressiveness against the Philippines after the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. reinforced Vietnam’s determination not to leave its island features in the Spratlys exposed.”

“Vietnamese occupation also serves to deny China the opportunity to occupy these features as China did when it took control of unoccupied Mischief Reef belonging to the Philippines in 1984,” he added.

(AFP)

Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. navy captain based in Hawaii, said that on the surface, Vietnam and China appeared to have strong, positive relations but “at its roots, the relationship is one of distrust and for Vietnam, pragmatism.”

“Vietnam has noticed that the PRC is most aggressive around undefended or uninhabited islands and islets,” Schuster said, referring to China by its official name the People’s Republic of China.

“Hanoi therefore sees expanding, hardening and expanding the garrisons on its own islands as a means of deterring PRC aggression.”

Yet Vietnam’s island building activities have been met with criticism from some neighboring countries.

Malaysia sent a rare letter of complaint to Vietnam in October 2024 over its development of an airstrip on Barque Canada reef – a feature that Malaysia also claims in the South China Sea.

(Planet Labs)

Another neighbor, the Philippines, announced that it was closely “monitoring” Vietnam’s island building activities.

In July 2023, the pro-China Manila Times published two reports on what it called “Vietnam’s militarization of the South China Sea,” citing leaked masterplans on island development from the Vietnamese defense ministry.

Shortly after the publication, a group of Filipinos staged a protest in front of the Vietnamese embassy in Manila, vandalizing the Vietnamese flag. The incident did not escalate but soured the usually friendly relationship between the two neighbors.

Reasonable response

The Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN has long been negotiating with China on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea and the consensus is to observe the status quo in the disputed waterway and maintain peace.

Azmi Hassan, a senior fellow at Malaysia’s Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research, explained that status quo means “there shouldn’t be any new reclamation, especially in the Spratly or Paracel Islands as new reclamation could create some instability.”

“But in the case of Vietnam, it’s very difficult to stop them because the Chinese have been doing it for many years and China has the longest airstrip and the biggest reclamation on Mischief Reef,” Hassan said.

(Ted Aljibe/AFP)

Malaysia also built an airstrip on Pulau Layang-Layang, known internationally as Swallow Reef, which is claimed by several countries including Vietnam.

“So it’s very hard to criticize Vietnam because Malaysia has done it, China has done it, and the Philippines has been doing it for quite some time,” the analyst said.

Greg Poling, AMTI’s director, told RFA that in his opinion, Hanoi’s goal with the development of features in the South China Sea “appears to be to allow it to better patrol its exclusive economic zone by sea and air in the face of China’s persistent presence.”

“That seems a reasonable and proportionate response,” he said.

The U.S. government has taken no public position on the issue but the Obama administration did push for a construction freeze by all parties, Poling said.

Then-U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Hanoi in June 2015 and discussed the issue during a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, Phung Quang Thanh and, according to the transcript of a press briefing.

Carter was told that “the government of Vietnam is considering … a permanent halt to reclamation and further militarization” of the new islands.

“But that was when the prime goal was to stop China’s island building,” Poling said. “Obviously that didn’t work so now I think the U.S. and other parties understand that Vietnam is not likely to agree to unilaterally restrain itself when China has already done it.”

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In 2015, Vietnam still insisted that it was only carrying out activities “to enhance and to consolidate the islands that are under our sovereignty.”

In the late Gen. Phung Quang Thanh’s words: “We do not expand those islands, we just consolidate to prevent the soil erosion because of the waves, to improve the livelihood of our people and of our personnel who are working and living there.”

“And for the submerged features, we have built small houses and buildings, which can accommodate only three people, and we do not expand those features. And the scope and the characteristics of those features are just civilian in nature,” Thanh told Carter.

Bad investment?

Fast forward 10 years, and Vietnam has reclaimed a total area of about half of what China has built up and among the 10 largest features in the Spratlys, five are being developed by Hanoi with an unknown, but no doubt massive budget.

The island building program, however, has been received positively by the Vietnamese public.

(RFA/Planet Labs)

Photos and video clips from the now popular Bai Thuyen Chai, Dao Tien Nu and Phan Vinh – or Barque Canada, Tennent and Pearson reefs respectively – have been shared and admired by millions of social media users as proof of Vietnamese military might and economic success even if the construction comes at a big environmental cost.

South China Sea researcher Dinh Kim Phuc told RFA Vietnamese that despite the environmental damage, Vietnam’s actions “must happen” and are necessary for “strategic defense” as long as China does not quit its expansionist ambitions.

However, some experts have warned against the effectiveness of such artificial islands from a military standpoint.

“Like Chinese-built islands, Vietnamese built islands are, by nature, small areas of land that are difficult to defend against modern land-attack missile capabilities, and given their low altitude, they are at the mercy of salt water corrosion of structures and systems ashore,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defense strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“So as with Chinese experience, the Vietnamese will also struggle to base military capabilities on these islands for extended periods of time,” Davis told RFA.

“In the longer term, they are also going to be vulnerable to the effects of climate change - most notably, sea level rise, which could quickly swamp a low-level landmass and see it become unusable.”

“These challenges are why I don’t worry too much about those Chinese-built bases in the South China Sea, as I think Beijing has made a bad investment there,” the analyst added.

AMTI’s Poling said rising sea levels and storm surge would threaten all the islands “but it is something that both China and Vietnam are likely able to cope with by continually refilling the islands and building up higher sea walls.”

That would entail considerable costs and cause even more environmental impact.

Iman Muttaqin Yusof in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this story

Edited by Mike Firn

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

The exercise, where Philippine FA-50 fighter jets flew alongside U.S. B-1 bombers in skies above the waterway, including the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal, drew a rebuke from China. Beijing said it threatened regional peace and stability.

It was the first time B-1 bombers were used for joint maneuvers in the South China Sea, the Philippine military said. The one-day exercise, staged on Tuesday, reflected the strong relations between the two longtime treaty allies, officials said.

Some security experts had said earlier that President Trump might pay less attention to Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, which has been working to shore up international support against China in the South China Sea.

“It’s the first exercise under the current administration of the U.S. government,” Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, the Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, told a press briefing Tuesday.

The exercise involved two B-1 bombers attached to the U.S. Pacific Air Forces and three FA-50s from the Philippine Air Force, Col. Maria Consuelo Castillo, the PAF spokeswoman, told the same press briefing.

The B-1 is a more advanced version of the B-52 bomber, which the U.S. Air Force had deployed in previous training missions over the South China Sea, military officials said.

“This exercise is a crucial step in enhancing our interoperability, improving air domain awareness and agile combat employment and supporting our shared bilateral air objectives,” Castillo said.

Filipino officials said the exercise was not a direct response to recent Chinese military and coast guard activities in the South China Sea, where tensions have been high lately between Manila and Beijing.

Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by both countries, lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but has been under de facto Chinese control since 2012.

China: ‘On high alert’

In response, Beijing said the joint exercise was a threat to peace and stability in the waterway.

“[T]he Philippines has been colluding with countries outside the region to organize the so-called ‘joint patrols’ to deliberately undermine peace and stability in the South China Sea,” a spokesperson for China’s military said on Tuesday.

Beijing said it had also conducted a routine patrol in the airspace above Scarborough Shoal on Tuesday.

China’s air force units would remain “on high alert to resolutely defend China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” the spokesperson said.

Castillo said the PAF were prepared for radio challenges from China during the staging of the joint exercise, even though it proceeded “regardless of the action of other foreign actors.” As of press time, there were no reports of any such challenges.

However, there were no scenarios where the airplanes simulated dogfights, Castillo said.

“[There’s] no bombing exercise,” she said.

Under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, the Philippines and the United States are compelled to come to each other’s aid in times of external attacks. Under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, Washington said that the scenario included armed attacks in the South China Sea.

China lays claim to almost the entire South China Sea, but its claims overlap with those of the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Over the past few months, Manila and Beijing have faced off in a series of confrontations at sea.

(AFP)

In related news, the Philippine military accused three Chinese Navy vessels of violating rules on innocent passage during their transit in Philippine waters.

The Chinese ships – a frigate, cruiser and replenishment oiler – were first monitored in the West Philippine Sea on Monday. The West Philippine Sea is Manila’s name for South China Sea waters that lie within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

The ships traveled southward and moved at a speed of six knots (11.1 kph), passing through Basilan Channel, towards Indonesia.

They were tracked by the Philippine Navy and Air Force aircraft, the military said, adding that radio challenges were also issued against the Chinese ships.

As of Tuesday morning, Trinidad said the Chinese vessels were about 120 nautical miles south of Basilan. “They are moving out of our exclusive economic zone,” he said.

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During the radio challenges, the Chinese vessels said they were exercising freedom of navigation and innocent passage, according to Trinidad.

A spokesperson for China’s military also said on Monday that the passage complied with “international law and practice.”

“The violation was that the travel through our archipelagic waters was not expeditious,” Trinidad said. “They could have traveled at a faster speed. There were instances in the central part of Sulu Sea that they slowed down to five to six knots.”

Trinidad said the Chinese vessels were likely on the way to Indonesia to take part in an upcoming military exercise, dubbed Komodo, which would involve at least 37 countries.

Apart from Indonesia and China, some of the countries involved in the Komodo exercise this month are the Philippines, the United States, Japan, Australia, France, India, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

In video footage taken from a PCG airplane over the weekend and released on Monday, several Chinese coast guard ships were tracked sailing in waters near Manila-claimed Scarborough Shoal, known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines, according to Filipino officials.

On Sunday, two China Coast Guard ships – CCG 3301 and CCG 3104 – were also tracked only 34 nautical miles off the coast of Pangasinan, a province on the west coast of Luzon, the main island in the northern Philippines.

The PCG said it immediately deployed an aircraft to identify the foreign ships and issued radio challenges but those were ignored, according to officials. The Philippine Coast Guard also dispatched two vessels to the area.

Philippine Coast Guard Tracks China Coast Guard Vessels off Pangasinan Coast

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has detected the movement of two China Coast Guard vessels approximately 34 nautical miles off the coast of Pangasinan through its Dark Vessel Detection (DVD) program.… pic.twitter.com/6hUtrr85h1

— Jay Tarriela (@jaytaryela) February 2, 2025

Located about 125 nautical miles (232 km) from Luzon, Scarborough Shoal is a traditional fishing ground for Filipino fishermen but it has been under China’s de facto control since 2012.

The Philippine Coast Guard is committed to “preventing the normalization of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) illegal deployment of maritime forces in the region,” the agency said in a statement.

The BRP Teresa Magbanua, a local coast guard ship, has been “actively challenging the presence of China Coast Guard 5901,” which is now about 117 nautical miles from the country’s coast, according to officials.

Dubbed “The Monster,” the CCG 5901 is the world’s largest coast ship. The Philippine coast guard statement did not say how the Teresa Magbanua was challenging its bigger foreign counterpart.

“Today marks the 30th consecutive day of the China Coast Guard’s illegal presence in the waters off Zambales,” the PCG said in its statement Saturday, referring to another province on Luzon’s west coast.

The refusal of the Chinese vessel to leave the Philippine EEZ is a “blatant disregard for international law and the established rules-based order,” it said.

Chinese navy ships off southern Philippines

Meanwhile, the Philippine Navy said it escorted three Chinese naval warships, including a cruiser-guided missile class vessel, out of Philippine waters on Monday. The vessels were first monitored Sunday off the coast of the southern Philippine provinces of Zamboanga and Basilan.

“The said PLA [People’s Liberation Army] navy vessels transited without prior diplomatic coordination and maintained an unusually slow speed of four to five knots,” said Maj. Orlando Aylon Jr., a regional military spokesman based in Zamboanga.

The three People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy vessels seen by Philippine authorities included a Jianki Class Frigate II, a Renhai Class Cruiser Guided Missile and a Type 903 Fuchi Class Replenishment Oiler.

“This is not consistent with the principles of innocent passage which requires continuous and expeditious passage and that the vessels should not linger in archipelagic waters longer than necessary,” said Lt. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Western Mindanao Command.

China defended the passage of its naval vessels in the area, saying they conducted training exercises in the open sea.

“The Chinese naval vessels’ passage through the Basilan Strait is in full compliance with … international law and practice,” a spokesperson for the Chinese PLA Southern Theater Command said on Monday.

The Philippines’ “act of smearing and hyping up the Chinese naval vessels’ normal passage through the Basilan Strait has seriously undermined the normal navigation rights of other countries including China,” the spokesperson added.

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Beijing’s taking possession of Scarborough Shoal forced Manila to file a lawsuit at the world court in The Hague 13 years ago.

In 2016, an international arbitration tribunal ruled in Manila’s favor but Beijing has never acknowledged that decision.

Geopolitical analyst Julio Amador III, who closely monitors the South China Sea, said it was too early to determine the Chinese navy vessels’ intentions but he noted that the principle of “freedom of navigation” applied.

The same could also be said about China’s “monster” ship. As long as it maintained its distance in the periphery of Scarborough, that should not escalate the tension in the area, Amador said.

“But if it goes inside the lagoon and then patrols while challenging our claims, then there are grounds for protest,” he told BenarNews.

“The only difference between that ship and the CCG ships in 2012 is the size.”

He was referring to the first incident when Chinese vessels entered the area and unleashed an international crisis that later resulted in Manila’s filing of a lawsuit against Beijing.

The “monster” ship’s presence there “is to remind us that they are making claims on Scarborough.”

“They want control of the waters,” Amador said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organizations.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez and Roel Pareño for BenarNews.

Vessels from the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) were going to Sandy Cay for a marine scientific survey and sand sampling on Friday, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said in a statement on Saturday.

“During the mission, the BFAR vessels encountered aggressive maneuvers from three Chinese Coast Guard vessels 4106, 5103 and 4202,” PCG said, calling the incident a “blatant disregard” of the 1972 Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs).

Sandy Cay is a group of cays – or low reefs – two nautical miles (3.7 km) from Philippines-occupied Thitu island, known as Pag-asa island in the Philippines.

Four smaller boats deployed by the China Coast Guard (CCG) also harassed the Philippine bureau’s two inflatable boats, the Philippine Coast Guard said.

“Compounding the situation, a People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) helicopter, identified by tail number 24, hovered at an unsafe altitude above the BFAR RHIBs, creating hazardous conditions due to the propeller wash,” the Philippine Coast Guard said.

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In a statement, the China Coast Guard said it expelled the Philippine vessels for unlawfully intruding into its waters.

China has “indisputable sovereignty” over the disputed waters and that it will continue to protect its maritime rights and interests, China Coast Guard spokesperson Liu Dejun said on Saturday.

Philippine authorities suspended the operation following the incident, the Philippine Coast Guard said.

The Philippine foreign affairs department is expected to file another diplomatic protest against China over the encounter, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo De Vega said.

Edited by BenarNews Staff.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by BenarNews staff.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro led the Philippine delegation in the 10th Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea, or BCM, which took place on Thursday in the Chinese city of Xiamen.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong headed the Chinese delegation in the BCM, a series of bilateral talks that were started in 2017 with the aim of lowering tensions between the two countries – rival claimants – over the contested waterway.

The Philippine side expressed “serious concern” about the presence and activities of China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels lately within Manila’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, including the 12,000-ton ship, dubbed “The Monster.”

CCG 5901, the world’s largest coast guard ship, had been spotted patrolling the resource-rich Scarborough Shoal area in recent days and waters off the coast of Luzon, the main island in the Philippines.

Manila had already lodged protests and diplomatic complaints about the ship’s intimidating presence in Philippine-claimed waters.

Earlier this week, a Philippine National Security official said China was “pushing us to the wall” as he indicated that Manila was considering pursuing a new lawsuit against Beijing over the South China Sea.

While CCG 5901 had not carried out any dangerous maneuvers so far, Philippine officials said its activities within Manila’s waters were not backed by any international law, according to a statement from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.

“Our position is clear and consistent, but so is our willingness to engage in dialogue. We firmly believe that despite the unresolved challenges and differences, there is genuine space for diplomatic and pragmatic cooperation in dealing with our issues in the South China Sea,” the statement quoted Lazaro as saying at the meeting.

China’s actions were “inconsistent” with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, which both Manila and Beijing had signed, and the recently passed Philippine Maritime Zones Act, according to the Philippine foreign office.

Beijing earlier said that the presence of its ships in Scarborough was “fully justified,” reiterating its jurisdiction over the shoal.

“We call on the Philippines once again to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, and stop all its actions that jeopardize peace and stability and complicate the situation in the South China Sea,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday.

(Philippine Coast Guard)

Located about 125 nautical miles (232 km) from Luzon island, Scarborough Shoal – known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines – has been under China’s de facto control since 2012.

Beijing’s possession of the shoal forced Manila to file a lawsuit at the world court in The Hague.

Four years later, an international arbitration tribunal ruled in Manila’s favor but Beijing has never acknowledged that decision, insisting on its historical claims over the waterway.

Another flashpoint

At Thursday’s meeting, the two sides also agreed to keep implementing a “provisional understanding” regarding Philippine resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre, a decrepit World War II-era military ship stationed in Second Thomas (Ayungin) Shoal, another disputed South China Sea feature.

CCG vessels had been regularly blocking Philippine ships carrying supplies and troops to the shoal. But the two countries arrived at a provisional agreement in July, following a dramatic standoff the previous month between Filipino servicemen and CCG personnel at Second Thomas Shoal, during which a Philippine serviceman lost a finger.

Philippine and Chinese officials, however, have not yet publicly disclosed the official document of the agreement or its details, with both sides making their own claims about the deal’s contents.

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At the talks on Thursday, both sides acknowledged the deal’s “positive outcomes” and “agreed to continue its implementation to sustain the de-escalation of tensions without prejudice to respective national positions,” Manila’s foreign office said.

Both sides also “agreed to reinvigorate the platform for coast guard cooperation” but no specific details were provided.

In 2016, under then-President Rodrigo Duterte who adopted a pro-Beijing policy, the two nations’ coast guards formed the Joint Coast Guard Committee (JCGC), establishing a hotline between the two maritime law enforcement agencies.

In January 2023, amid increasing tensions in the disputed waters, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to set up a communication line between their foreign ministries.

But a few months later, Manila officials said that China could not be reached in times of high tensions at sea.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Camille Elemia for BenarNews.

Iwaya visited Manila on Wednesday as part of a high-profile diplomatic push by Tokyo in Southeast Asian countries that border the strategic waterway. Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba traveled to Malaysia and Indonesia to promote deeper defense and economic ties.

In Manila, Foreign Minister Iwaya met with his Filipino counterpart, Enrique Manalo.

Overlapping claims in the South China Sea “is a legitimate concern for the international community because it directly links to regional peace and stability,” Iwaya told a press briefing afterward.

“Southeast Asia is located at a strategic pivot in the Indo-Pacific and is a world growth center, thus partnership with Southeast Asia is vital for regional peace and stability,” Iwaya said through an interpreter.

“We will approach the next U.S. administration to convey that constructive commitment of the United States in this region is important, also for the United States itself.”

The South China Sea, which is potentially mineral-rich and a crucial corridor for international shipping, has become one of the most perilous geopolitical hot spots in recent years. China claims almost the entire waterway while the Philippines, as well as Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan have overlapping claims to parts of it.

Over the past few months, Manila and Beijing have faced off in high-stakes confrontations in the disputed waters.

Iwaya said he was expected to attend Trump’s inauguration in Washington on Jan. 20, during which he would seek to build momentum on a trilateral arrangement that the Philippines and Japan forged with the outgoing Biden administration.

Iwaya said Tokyo “strongly opposes any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force” in the South China Sea, where an increasingly bold China has been intruding into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

China has maintained its claim in the sea region, saying that the activities of its coast guard vessels there were lawful and “fully justified.”

Manalo, the Philippines’ top diplomat, said Chinese and Philippine officials were set to discuss their dispute in their latest bilateral meeting in the Chinese city of Xiamen on Thursday.

Both sides are likely to discuss recent developments in the waterway, including the presence of China’s biggest coast guard ship – and the world’s largest – at the contested Scarborough Shoal.

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During the news briefing on Wednesday, Manalo said that Manila and Tokyo had made “significant strides” in defense and security cooperation.

Japan does not have territorial claims that overlap with China’s expansive ones in the South China Sea, but Tokyo faces a separate territorial challenge from Beijing in the East China Sea.

“As neighbors, we face similar challenges in our common pursuit of regional peace and stability. Thus, we are working together to improve resilience and enhance adaptive capacity in the face of the evolving geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region,” Manalo said.

Last month, the Philippine Senate ratified a so-called Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Japan, allowing the two allied nations to deploy troops on each other’s soil for military exercises.

(Jason Gutierrez/BenarNews)

Also on Wednesday, in an exit telephone call to Marcos, outgoing U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris emphasized the need for the two countries to carry on with their alliance after the presidential transfer of power and “in the face of provocations from the People’s Republic of China.”

She noted that Washington “must stand with the Philippines in the face of such provocations and the enduring nature of the U.S. defense commitments to the Philippines,” her office said in a statement.

Marcos and Harris had enjoyed a close working relationship and met six times during her term. In November 2022, the American vice president visited Palawan, the Philippine island on the frontline of Manila’s territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea.

The U.S. and the Philippines are bound by a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty that calls on both nations to come to each other’s aid in times of aggression by a third party.

The Biden administration has indicated it would help the Philippines defend itself in the event of an armed attack “anywhere in the South China Sea.”

Jeoffrey Maitem in Manila contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

Manila has tried options including protests and official diplomatic complaints, and yet a Chinese coast guard ship – the world’s largest – is again in Philippine waters, said a spokesman of the Task Force for the West Philippine Sea, which is Manila’s name for the waters it claims.

The Philippine task force spokesman Jonathan Malaya explained at a press conference on Tuesday that Manila was running out of options in dealing with Beijing’s continued actions to assert what China claims is its sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea.

Since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assumed the presidency in June 2022, his administration has filed a total of 199 diplomatic protests against Chinese vessels and activities in the waterway.

Reporters asked whether the Philippines was thinking of filing another lawsuit akin to the one adjudicated in its favor and against Beijing in 2016 by an international arbitral tribunal.

“Will [the presence of the Chinese ship in Manila-claimed waters] lead to another case? All options are on the table,” he answered.

“[T]he closer the ‘monster’ ship is [to] Philippine waters, the more it [raises tensions] and the more the Philippine government contemplates things it was not contemplating before.”

Malaya said that China was “pushing us to the wall” but the Philippines would not back down.

“We do not waver or cower in the face of intimidation. On the contrary, it strengthens our resolve because we know we are in the right.”

“The Monster” refers to the giant 12,000-ton China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel 5901, which patrolled the disputed Scarborough Shoal area in recent days.

The behemoth subsequently moved to the northwestern coast of the Philippines’ Luzon island on Tuesday, where it was last spotted some 77 nautical miles (143 kilometers) from the shoreline.

China responded to Malay’s comments saying it maintained its claim in the waterway. The CCG vessels’ activities there were lawful and “fully justified,” added the superpower’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

“China’s sovereignty and rights and interests in the South China Sea were established in the long course of history, and are solidly grounded in history and the law and compliant with the international law and practice,” spokesman Guo Jiakun said Monday at a news conference.

“We call on the Philippines once again to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, and stop all its actions that jeopardize peace and stability and complicate the situation in the South China Sea.”

(.)

Located about 125 nautical miles (232 km) from Luzon Island, the Scarborough Shoal – known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines – has been under China’s de facto control since 2012.

Beijing’s possession of the shoal forced Manila to file a lawsuit at the world court in The Hague.

The court’s international arbitral tribunal in 2016 ruled in Manila’s favor but Beijing has never acknowledged that decision.

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Philippine officials on Monday said the government had filed yet another diplomatic protest over the presence of Chinese ships in waters within its exclusive economic zone.

In recent years, a slew of countries, including the United States, Japan, Australia, France and United Kingdom, have also supported Manila and carried out joint sails with the Philippines in the contested sea.

Reporters asked Malaya whether the Philippine government was considering asking its foreign allies the U.S. and Japan for help in driving away the Chinese vessel.

“We’re keeping our options open,” answered Malaya.

“Now the ball is in the court of the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” he said.

Recently, the Philippine Senate ratified a so-called Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Japan, allowing the two allied nations to deploy troops on each other’s soil for military exercises.

The RAA – which will take effect once Philippine President Marcos signs off on it and Japan’s legislature ratifies it – is the first of its kind signed by Tokyo with an Asian country.

Japan, unlike the Philippines, does not have territorial claims that overlap with China’s expansive ones in the South China Sea.

But Tokyo has a separate dispute with Beijing over a group of uninhabited islands in the Senkaku chain (also known as the Diaoyu Islands) in the East China Sea.

On Monday, the leaders of the Philippines, Japan and the United States held a telephone summit to discuss regional security and their countries’ “continuing cooperation” amid China’s activities in the disputed South China Sea.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that the coast guard “conducts its patrols and law enforcement activities in relevant waters in full accordance with the law.”

“It is fully justified,” he added.

Repeated confrontations in disputed waters over the past year have raised fears of conflict between China and U.S. ally the Philippines.

In the latest development, the 12,000-ton CCG5901, dubbed “The Monster” because of its size, seemed to have left the coastline off Zambales, in the central Luzon region of the Philippines, and was about 90 nautical miles offshore as of Wednesday afternoon, the Philippine coast guard, or PCG, said.

Another Chinese coast guard ship – the CCG3103 - is heading to the area and was likely to serve as a replacement vessel for the monster ship to maintain China’s “illegal presence” within the exclusive economic zone, it said.

Besides the CCG5901 and CCG3103, there are at least six other Chinese coast guard vessels in the waters in which the Philippines holds jurisdiction rights to resources.

“The Monster” had been operating in an area 60-70 nautical miles from Zambales for the previous four days, according to spokesperson Jay Tarriela, who said that coast guard vessel BRP Cabra was deployed to closely monitor the “illegal” Chinese ship.

China “has provocatively deployed a People’s Liberation Army Navy helicopter, tail number 47” to the area, Tarriela said in a statement. The Philippine coast guard has been ordered by its commandant to refrain from action that could escalate tension, he added.

The Philippine military on Tuesday confirmed that it would continue conducting maritime and air patrols in the West Philippine Sea, or part of the South China Sea under Manila’s jurisdiction.

The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper known for its hawkish stance, said the Philippines was “hyping up” the CCG5901’s “normal” activities.

Chinese analyst Ding Duo was quoted as saying that after China announced the baselines around Huangyan Dao, the Chinese name for Scarborough Shoal, both the Chinese navy and coastguard were “set to increase their routine patrols and exercises in the area, and the Philippines needs to adapt to this process.”

That meant the current campaign, seen by Manila as an illegal act of intimidation, was set to continue.

U.S. aircraft carrier

Meanwhile, a carrier strike group led by the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), has been operating in the South China Sea since Jan. 3.

(Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan J/U.S. Navy)

The strike group includes the embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59) and destroyers USS Sterett (DDG-104) and USS William P. Lawrence (DDG-110).

The U.S. Navy has released a number of photos showing the Carl Vinson and its accompanying vessels conducting daily “routine operations” to reaffirm freedom of navigation in the waterway.

It did not specify the carrier’s exact location and only said that it was “in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.”

“U.S. forces operate in the South China Sea on a daily basis,” the 7th Fleet has repeatedly said in its statements. “The United States upholds freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle.”

“No member of the international community should be intimidated or coerced into giving up their rights and freedoms,” it said.

Besides the Carl Vinson strike group, U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) was also spotted conducting a firearms shooting training for its sailors on Tuesday in the South China Sea.

The Philippines and the U.S. in 1951 signed a Mutual Defense Treaty that commits the allies to help each other in time of attack by a third party.

Edited by RFA Staff.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA and BenarNews Staff.

The 12,000-ton China Coast Guard vessel 5901, known as “The Monster” for its sheer size, was last seen on Saturday about 54 nautical miles from Capones, a Philippine island in the South China Sea close to the coast of western Zambales province.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has been shadowing CCG 5901 and transmitting radio messages asking it to leave Philippine waters, said Jonathan Malaya, assistant director general of the National Security Council.

“Obviously, this is an act of intimidation, coercion and aggression against the Philippines,” Malaya told a press briefing on Monday.

“We have all our assets pointed at this monster ship. At the moment it does something bad in the sense that it would provoke actions, there will be appropriate action from the government,” Malaya said, without elaborating.

The Chinese ship arrived last week at Scarborough Shoal, a disputed South China Sea feature within the Philippines’ EEZ, an analyst told Radio Free Asia, a news service affiliated with BenarNews.

Malaya dismissed a Chinese government statement saying that its vessel was merely conducting a patrol within its jurisdiction.

China’s embassy in Manila has not responded to media requests for comment, but has repeatedly asserted Beijing’s jurisdiction over Scarborough Shoal, also known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines.

The shoal, located 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from the main Philippine island of Luzon, has been under Beijing’s de facto control since 2012. It is claimed by China, the Philippines and Taiwan. The shoal is a traditional fishing ground for Filipino fishermen but Chinese vessels have restricted their access in recent years.

While CCG 5901 has not carried out any dangerous maneuvers so far, Malaya said its activities within Manila’s waters were not backed by any international law.

“And given that we do not want to be the precursor of any provocative action, we’re just monitoring and shadowing it as of now,” he said.

On Sunday, the Philippine Coast Guard said that one of its ships, the BRP Cabra, and its aircraft were tailing the huge Chinese ship and issuing radio challenges.

As of 7 p.m. Monday, the BRP Cabra had kept on the heels of the foreign ship for a third straight day, said Commodore Jay Tarriela, PCG spokesman for the West Philippine Sea – Manila’s name for South China Sea waters within its exclusive economic zone.

CCG 5901’s “erratic movements” indicated that it was not engaged in “innocent passage” in Philippine waters, but was actually conducting “a law enforcement operation” in Manila’s territorial waters, Tarriela said.

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Beijing draws baselines around shoal in Manila’s jurisdiction to fortify claims

In November, Beijing announced baselines of its territorial sea around the Scarborough Shoal to strengthen its claim over the South China Sea feature, a move that Manila rejected.

Last month, confrontations heated up between Beijing and Manila around the area, with both claimants accusing each other of instigating trouble.

Beijing said Manila was encroaching in what it claimed as its jurisdiction, forcing it to take measures. The PCG accused its Chinese counterpart of firing a water cannon and of sideswiping a government fisheries ship patrolling the area.

In 2012, China took possession of the shoal, forcing the Philippines to file a lawsuit before a world court. Four years later, an international arbitral tribunal ruled in Manila’s favor.

Beijing has refused to acknowledge the ruling.

BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for Benar News.

Here are five areas to watch in 2025:

Taiwan Strait

The situation in the Taiwan Strait has been becoming notably more tense, with nearly 3,000 incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone between January and November 2024, as well as two major military exercises - Joint Sword A and B – coinciding with important political events on the self-ruled island.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated in his New Year message that the unification of Taiwan was “inevitable.”

“China will continue to hold exercises in 2025 if senior Taiwanese officials visit the United States or top U.S. officials visit Taiwan,” said Shen Ming-Shih, a research fellow at the top Taiwan government think tank, the Institute for National Defense Security Research (INDSR).

Chinese military exercises such as joint fire strike, joint blockade, and joint anti-access and area denial will continue, but they will become less effective as Taiwan develops effective countermeasures, Shen said.

Another INDSR research fellow, Ou Si-Fu, director of the Division of Chinese Politics, Military and Warfighting Concepts, told Radio Free Asia that China was not ready for a full-on war with Taiwan.

“Xi is not confident with his army,” Ou said, pointing to recent sackings in the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army.

“The PLA has not fought a real war in a long time, so an imminent invasion of Taiwan is not expected,” the analyst said. “They may be preparing their forces, but we are preparing, too.”

(Taiwan Presidential Office/AP)

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said in his New Year message that his government would increase the defense budget and strengthen military capabilities.

Scarborough Shoal

Latest developments at the chain of reefs in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but under China’s de-facto control are worrisome. Just before the New Year, the PLA Southern Theater Command conducted large-scale combat readiness drills at the shoal that involved both naval and air force troops.

China’s coast guard is maintaining a strong presence in the area, as is its maritime militia.

A month earlier, Beijing announced a set of baselines around the Scarborough Shoal to define its territorial waters and airspace – a step seen as illegal by many but used by China to justify its actions against the Philippines and its ally the United States.

The Chinese coastguard in early December fired a water cannon at a Philippine fisheries bureau boat taking supplies to fishermen in the shoal, saying it “dangerously approached” Beijing’s territorial waters.

“You cannot draw baselines if you don’t own the features,” said former Philippine Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio. He suggested that the Philippines should challenge China’s announcement at an international tribunal.

Scarborough Shoal is unoccupied and there are no structures on it but that may change in 2025, given Beijing’s assertiveness. Philippine forces have been removing Chinese floating barriers around the reefs but access by Filipino fishermen to their traditional fishing ground remains restricted.

The Philippines is believed to be considering a new legal case against China for its violations of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea but since Beijing refused to take part and rejected the ruling of the 2016 U.N. arbitral tribunal, there is little chance it will participate.

(RFA)

Second Thomas Shoal

Throughout 2024, China and the Philippines were engaged in stand-offs at the Second Thomas Shoal, also inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, where Manila deliberately grounded an old warship in 1999 to serve as an outpost.

In the last few years, China’s coast guard has been blocking and disrupting Philippine resupply missions to the ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, and the troops stationed there.

On June 17, 2024, in an unprecedented confrontation, China coast guard personnel, armed with pikes and machetes, punctured Philippine boats and seized firearms during a Philippine rotate and resupply mission, wounding a Filipino sailor.

Both sides later called for de-escalation. On Dec. 12, China said it had granted permission to the Philippines to resupply the “illegally grounded” warship on Second Thomas Shoal on a humanitarian basis.

But the June 17 incident showed that the situation could easily escalate into conflict, especially given the proximity of Second Thomas Shoal to a Chinese naval base on Mischief Reef, an artificial island that China built and has fully militarized.

Manila and Washington signed a Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951 under which both parties are obliged to support each other in the event of an armed attack. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in November revealed that the U.S. military had set up a Task Force Ayungin, the Filipino name for the Second Thomas Shoal.

Chief of the Philippine armed forces, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., told an RFA reporter in Manila that his country was pursuing a three-pronged strategy when it comes to maritime defense: to establish an effective presence; to create effective deterrence and modernize military equipment; and to leverage alliances and partnerships with like-minded nations.

Beijing, however, is not expected to give up its demand that Manila removes the BRP Sierra Madre and leave the disputed shoal.

For its part, the Philippines is determined to defend it.

“We’ll never abandon our territory at Ayungin,” insisted Col. Xerxes Trinidad, the Philippine armed forces’ spokesperson.

Vietnam’s island building

Vietnam’s island building in the South China Sea has reached a record, with the total area created in the first six months of 2024 equaling that of 2022 and 2023 combined, according to a study by the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI).

Between November 2023 and June 2024, Hanoi created 692 new acres (280 ha) of land across a total of 10 features in the Spratly archipelago. Vietnam’s overall dredging and landfill totaled about 2,360 acres (955 ha), roughly half of China’s 4,650 acres (1,881.7 ha).

“Three years from when it first began, Vietnam is still surprising observers with the ever-increasing scope of its dredging and landfill in the Spratly Islands,” AMTI said.

Vietnam occupies 27 features and has been carrying out large-scale reclamation works on some over the past year.

(AMTI/Maxar Technologies)

A new 3,000-meter airstrip is nearly finished on Barque Canada reef, where the total landfill area more than doubled in one year to nearly 2.5 square kilometers, or 617.7 acres, by October 2024.

Vietnam has had only one airstrip on an island called Spratly, measuring 1,300 meters, but besides Barque Canada, AMTI said that “it would be unsurprising” if Hanoi also considers runways on Pearson and Ladd reefs.

New bases and runways “would give Vietnam a position on the other side of China’s ‘Big Three’ islands,” said Tom Shugart, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

He was referring to China-developed Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs, which are the largest artificial islands in the South China Sea. The next four largest are all newly expanded Vietnamese reefs.

“Its progress in the last five months suggests that Hanoi is determined to maximize the strategic potential of the features it occupies,” said AMTI, adding that “it remains difficult to say when the expansion will end—and what new capabilities Vietnam will have once it has.”

Code of Conduct in the South China Sea

Malaysia is taking over as chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, from Laos this month and every time the chair changes hands, the question of a legally binding code of conduct (COC) for all competing parties in the South China Sea surfaces.

China and ASEAN countries have been negotiating a COC after reaching an initial Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002.

More than two decades later, it seems many obstacles remain despite Beijing’s repeated assertions that the consultation process is going well and agreement is close.

Premier Li Qiang told an ASEAN summit in October that China and the bloc were “striving for early conclusion” of the code of conduct.

China and five other parties, including four ASEAN countries – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – hold conflicting claims over parts of the South China Sea but China’s claim is by far the most expansive, covering nearly 90% of the sea.

China is adamantly against what it sees as “a politicization” of the COC, as well as any “external interference” in the matter. Yet its assertiveness has prompted some countries to seek a counterweight from outside ASEAN.

“Negotiations on the COC continue at a snail’s pace,” former Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon told Reuters news agency in October.

“An agreement seems impossible,” said Philippine legal expert, former Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio. “China will never agree to some provisions, Vietnam to some others and so on.

The target of concluding the COC by 2026, therefore, was “unrealistic,” he said.

One of the underlying obstacles is ASEAN’s own division and weakness.

“ASEAN could strengthen its collective bargaining power by aligning the interests of its member states and speaking with a unified voice in negotiations with external powers like China,” said Isha Gharti, a public policy professor at Thailand’s Chiang Mai University.

It remains to be seen how the new chair Malaysia will seek to raise a collective ASEAN voice.

Edited by RFA Staff

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Meanwhile, the Chinese navy has been conducting a New Year carrier-based helicopter training exercise in the airspace over the South China Sea, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

The 12,000-ton CCG 5901 arrived at Scarborough Shoal on Wednesday, said Ray Powell, director of the SeaLight project at Stanford University, who tracks the ship’s movements.

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There are at least three other Chinese coast guard ships - CCG 3106, 3302 and 3305 – as well as seven militia ships, already present at the shoal, Powell told Radio Free Asia.

The aim of their mission is to boost Beijing’s control over the maritime area just 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from the main Philippine island of Luzon, he said.

Scarborough Shoal is known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc and has served as a traditional fishing ground for Filipino fishermen but their access has been restricted by Chinese vessels in recent times, which hold de-facto control of the area.

It is well within the area under the jurisdiction of the Philippines, where it has exclusive rights to resources in the waters and on the seabed.

“The Monster” is not only large in size, it is also armed with heavy machine guns and has a helicopter platform.

It is unclear whether the ship carries any helicopter unit on this mission but last week, the Chinese coast guard conducted a carrier-based helicopter training exercise, also at Scarborough Shoal, using another coast guard vessel.

Control of airspace

Chinese authorities “are now paying more attention to the deployment of airpower” in relation to the South China Sea disputes, Yang Xiao, a maritime expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said on an influential blog with nearly three million followers on Sina Weibo.

The U.S. and Philippine militaries have been deploying reconnaissance aircraft and drones to the Scarborough Shoal, a strategically located chain of reefs south of Bashi channel between Taiwan and the Philippines, Yang said, adding that China now has to gain air control, especially after it announced baselines to form territorial sea and airspace around the shoal in November.

The carrier-based aircraft training is to send a warning to the Philippines and its ally the U.S. that they should think twice before “entering China’s airspace,” the Chinese expert said.

The Chinese coast guard’s training exercise on Dec. 27 was similar to current drills by a helicopter unit of the Southern Theater Command navy’s carrier-based aviation force, conducted at an unspecified location in the South China Sea.

(X: Ray Powell)

According to CCTV, on Wednesday and Thursday, various types of carrier-based helicopters carried out multi-subject practical training including search and rescue, alert control, and sea landing, “further improving the unit’s coordinated combat capabilities.”

The aircraft also carried out reconnaissance patrol and alert control training exercises at high altitude in a “target sea area,” CCTV said without identifying the location.

(CCTV)

In recent weeks, China’s military has been ramping up combat readiness exercises at Scarborough Shoal.

On Sunday, its Southern Theater Command staged large-scale patrols around the shoal, with both navy and the air force taking part.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Personnel from China’s navy and air force, as well as the coast guard, took part in Sunday’s drills at the group of reefs that China refers to as Huangyan Dao, with a U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ship spotted in the area.

The ministry said that since the beginning of the month, the Southern Theater Command “has organized its naval and air force troops to continuously strengthen maritime and airspace patrols” around the shoal.

Scarborough Shoal is known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc, and is well inside its exclusive economic zone, just 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from the main Philippine island of Luzon.

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In a video clip released by the Chinese Command, several military aircraft including two Su-30 fighter jets, an H-6K bomber and a Shaanxi Y-8 transport plane, were seen flying over the reefs while at least three naval ships led by the 11,000-ton Type 055 large destroyer Xianyang were also present.

(Southern Theater Command)

“This is China flexing its muscle and making a statement about its claim of territorial sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal,” said Ray Powell, a U.S. maritime analyst and director of the SeaLight project at Stanford University.

“Looking at 2024 as a whole, we’ve seen China pass new policy enabling its coast guard to detain border violators for up to 60 days and establish straight baselines around Scarborough Shoal to bolster its case that it is Chinese territory,” Powell told Radio Free Asia, adding that Beijing has also increased its regular coast guard and maritime militia presence to push Philippine coast guard and fisheries patrols further away, and increased its military presence.

“Beijing is putting real teeth behind its ‘indisputable sovereignty’ claim over the shoal,” he said.

No more ‘gray zone’

Powell spotted the USNS Victorious, a U.S. Military Sealift Command ocean surveillance vessel, patrolling nearby, apparently to monitor the Chinese exercise.

“I don’t think we can be sure, but it seems very timely. I can’t think of another reason it would have tarried there at that time unless it was to surveil China’s patrol,” he told RFA.

The United States is the Philippines’ treaty ally and has repeatedly condemned China’s aggression in the waters over which China claims the lion’s share. China’s claims were rejected by an international tribunal in 2016 and are being disputed by other littoral states.

Manila has yet to respond to Beijing’s latest activities but the Philippine army chief said this month that China had “upscaled its presence” in the West Philippine Sea, referring to the area of South China Sea under Philippine jurisdiction.

Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., chief of the armed forces, told an RFA reporter in Manila that his office had adopted an acronym for Chinese activities in the region – ICAD, or illegal, coercive, aggressive and disruptive, actions – instead of gray zone activities.

Gray zone tactics are aggressive actions that jeopardize a nation’s security but are under the threshold of war and therefore difficult to respond to.

(Southern Theater Command)

The Philippine military’s new strategy is to set up an effective presence in the West Philippine Sea with a “whole nation approach,” with all sectors of society taking part in the maritime strategy, according to Brawner.

“The Philippines lacks the maritime capability to directly challenge China’s effective control of Scarborough Shoal,” said Stanford’s Powell.

“It will have to press its case on the international stage that China’s actions have violated international law by denying Philippine fishermen access to the shoal and by permitting environmental destruction of the shoal by its own fishermen through their illegal giant clam harvesting,” the analyst added.

In 2016 Manila brought Beijing to a U.N. arbitral tribunal which ruled that almost all China’s claims in the South China Sea were illegal and therefore invalid. China refused to take part and rejected the ruling.

The Philippine government, however, is considering a new legal case against China for its violations of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and is seeking support from other nations, sources told RFA.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Scarborough Shoal, known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc, is a triangular chain of reefs about 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from Luzon, the main Philippine island. Claimed by China, the Philippines and Taiwan, the shoal has been under Beijing’s de-facto control since 2012.

China announced last month the baselines of its territorial sea around Scarborough Shoal to strengthen its claim over the feature that lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

“Ambassador Geng Shuang, the deputy permanent representative of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations deposited the statement and relevant charts of the baselines of the shoal to the U.N. on behalf of the Chinese government,” said the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the U.N. in a statement on Monday.

By submitting the statement and charts, Beijing apparently aims to make its claim a fait accompli, according to media reports.

“Huangyan Dao [Scarborough Shoal] is an inherent part of China’s territory … This is a normal measure taken by the Chinese government to strengthen maritime administration in accordance with the law, and is in line with international law and practice,” said the mission, adding that the country was “fulfilling its obligations” under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS.

A baseline under the UNCLOS is a line that runs along the coast of a country or an island, from which the extent of the territorial sea and other maritime zones such as the exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf are measured.

The Philippines had not commented by the time of this publication.

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In November, however, when Beijing announced the baselines, Manila protested, calling it a violation of “the Philippines’ long-established sovereignty over the shoal.”

“The establishment of the baselines by China around the shoal is a continuation of its 2012 illegal seizure of the shoal, which the Philippines continues to strongly oppose,” said the Philippine Presidential Office for Maritime Concerns at that time.

In 2016, a U.N. arbitration tribunal rejected all of China’s claims to reefs in the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal. The tribunal also determined that the shoal is a rock rather than an island.

As a result, while the shoal may qualify for a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, it cannot establish an exclusive economic zone. Instead, it is recognized as part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.

Edited by RFA Staff.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

A joint statement issued after a meeting last month in Beijing between new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Chinese President Xi Jinping said the two countries had reached an “important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims.”

However, Jakarta had consistently rejected China’s sweeping claims in the contested South China Sea, which encroaches into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) north of the Natuna islands.

During a parliamentary hearing on Monday, Indonesian legislator Sukamta said these Chinese claims, which are represented on its maps by a so-called nine-dash line, are changed by Beijing as it pleases.

“Previously it was nine dashes, now it’s 10,” said the legislator who goes by one name.

“We must be firm in asserting our rights. … Without clear boundaries, we risk being manipulated by China,” he said.

Sukamta called for more clarity on the geographical scope of the development agreement mentioned in the text of the joint statement issued after Prabowo met with Xi.

China’s claims in the South China Sea overlap those of five Asian nations and Taiwan.

And in what many analysts back then saw as a political message, Jakarta in 2017 renamed the southern reaches of the South China Sea the North Natuna Sea to emphasize its sovereignty over those waters encompassing natural gas fields.

Another Indonesian lawmaker, Farah Puteri Nahlia, echoed Sukamta’s concerns.

“We all understand that China is Indonesia’s key trading partner, but we should not become overly dependent,” Farah said.

“What steps will the foreign ministry take to ensure we maintain our non-aligned stance? We must aim for not only free trade but fair trade, while safeguarding our EEZ amidst these tensions.”

Already, during the first week of Prabowo’s presidency in October, Indonesian naval and coast guard ships confronted and expelled a Chinese coast guard ship from its EEZ in the North Natuna Sea on three occasions.

China has in recent years also opposed Indonesia’s oil and gas exploration activities in its EEZ.

This agreement comes amid escalating tensions in the South China Sea region, a crucial maritime route for global commerce.

‘50% of nothing is still nothing’

Foreign Minister Sugiono responded to lawmakers’ concerns saying that the joint statement did not recognize China’s nine-dash line.

“The text itself is clear – it does not imply any such recognition,” Sugiono, who goes by one name, told lawmakers.

“The specifics, including the locations and terms of the cooperation, have not yet been defined. This is merely a preliminary agreement and the details will be worked out later.”

He also said joint cooperation was President Prabowo’s plan “as part of efforts to reduce tensions and maximize resource utilization,” and had been discussed with leaders of neighboring countries.

“The core principle is that President Prabowo has directed us to enhance cooperation with our neighboring countries for mutual benefit, while upholding Indonesia’s sovereignty,” Sugiono said.

He said Indonesia’s position on sovereignty remained unchanged, noting that the joint development agreement would be guided by international law and Indonesia’s interests.

“Indonesia’s stance remains unchanged, as do the positions of its neighbors. However, the principle stands: 50% of nothing is still nothing,” Sugiono further said.

“If there is no way to derive benefit from these resources for our nation’s interests, it is better to collaborate while strictly adhering to fundamental principles and maintaining sovereignty.”

‘Little room for multiple interpretations’

For foreign policy analyst Mohamad Rosyidin, these explanations from Sugiono did not explain the crux of the problem – why the joint statement included the phrase “overlapping claims.”

“The statement is merely an excuse for the blunder in the joint statement. It’s unlikely the government will admit to that mistake,” Rosyidin, of Diponegoro University, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.

“Just because we want to collaborate with China in the South China Sea doesn’t mean Indonesia should shift from a rule-based approach to pragmatism.”

The Indonesian government should remain consistent with the nation’s stance on the South China Sea, he said.

“The real problem is that Chinese vessels frequently enter Natuna waters. However, this does not mean there is an overlapping claim; it is a violation of sovereignty by China.”

Another international relations analyst, Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, concurred.

“I am among those who believe there is little room for multiple interpretations of the joint statement between President Prabowo and President Xi Jinping regarding overlapping claims,” he told BenarNews.

“Regardless of how it is responded to or justified, I see the initial phrasing in the agreement as a concession by Indonesia, yielding or compromising with China.”

He said the problematic text could have an effect on Indonesia, if not immediately then in the near future.

“Whether intentional or not is a secondary matter. Intentional or not, there will be impacts on Indonesia’s sovereign rights. … especially if there are no serious efforts for reversal through follow-up measures or statements,” he said.

Such a concession may ease any tensions between Indonesia and China, but it strengthens Beijing’s hand and gives the impression Jakarta is yielding to the major power, he said.

“Currently, the foreign minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are in damage-control mode. The potential for conflict and unilateral claims are two sides of the same coin,” he said.

“The only positive aspect is that the initiative has not yet materialized, as mentioned by the foreign minister.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Pizaro Gozali Idrus for BenarNews.

Scarborough Shoal, known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines, is about 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from the main Philippine island of Luzon. China now effectively controls it, even though a landmark international arbitration case in 2016 rejected Beijing’s claims to most of the South China Sea.

The People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, Southern Theater Command, responsible for the contested waterway, said in a statement on Thursday that navy and air forces were taking part in the “routine training” which included reconnaissance and early warning; and maritime and airspace patrol near the shoal.

The Philippines has not reacted to the news but in the past Manila has repeatedly protested against what it saw as “China’s bullying.”

Also on Thursday, a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group entered the South China Sea, according to ship-tracking data obtained and analyzed by Radio Free Asia.

Data from the MarineTraffic website show the nuclear-powered USS Abraham Lincoln, or CVN-72, transited the Singapore Strait and entered the South China Sea on Thursday morning before moving northeast. Unusually, the ship has its automatic identification system, which shows its location, turned on.

‘Stirring up trouble’

The Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group also includes Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., and destroyers USS Spruance and USS Michael Murphy.

The destroyers have just visited Thailand and Singapore, and are now “underway conducting routine operations in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations,” the U.S. Navy said.

USS Abraham Lincoln is the fifth aircraft carrier of the Nimitz class that comprises the largest warships in the world. The U.S. 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed fleet with a continuous presence in the Indo-Pacific for more than 75 years.

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The navy said in a news release that the fleet “routinely interacts and operates with allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

In its statement, the PLA Southern Theater Command criticized “certain countries from outside the region” that were “stirring up trouble” and creating instability in the South China Sea but did not name any country.

It reiterated that China has “indisputable sovereignty” over Huangyan Dao and its surrounding waters, and that Chinese troops would “resolutely” defend national sovereignty and maritime rights.

Edited by Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Lam became the first general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party to visit Bach Long Vi island in the Gulf of Tonkin since 2000, when Hanoi and Beijing finally signed an agreement to clearly demarcate their boundary there after nine years of negotiations

Last March, China unilaterally announced a new baseline that defines its territory in the northern part of the gulf called Beibu in Chinese, drawing concern from the Vietnamese government. Some analysts said that Beijing may use it as a pretext to push Hanoi to renegotiate the boundary agreement.

During the visit on Thursday, To Lam called on local government officials to develop Bach Long Vi island, “ensuring that it becomes a fortress for defending Vietnam’s maritime sovereignty,” according to media reports.

“The Party chief praised the island’s strategic importance, pointing out that Bach Long Vi serves as a key maritime gateway, controlling vital shipping lanes in the Gulf of Tonkin and providing logistics services for military activities at sea,” the Vietnam News Agency reported.

“General Secretary To Lam’s visit to Bach Long Vi was billed as a trip to learn about the living and working conditions of local residents,” said Carlyle Thayer, emeritus professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.

“However, the sub-text of his visit was to underscore the importance of the island’s infrastructure to national security and defense of Vietnam’s sovereignty over islands and sea.”

‘Normal practice’

“Media coverage highlighted that Bach Long Vi was located 15 nautical miles from the boundary line delimiting the Gulf of Tonkin,” noted Thayer. The distance means the island sits entirely inside Vietnam’s waters.

Bach Long Vi is Vietnam’s furthest island from its mainland and the largest habitable island in the South China Sea, with an area of more than 3 square kilometers (1.2 square miles). It is about 110 km (68 miles) from Haiphong in Vietnam and 120 km (75 miles) from China’s Hainan Island.

Bach Long Vi was transferred to Vietnam in March 1957 by a friendly China, which occupied it at the time, allowing Hanoi to establish a radar station there for early warning against U.S. air attacks.

Vietnamese historians said Beijing “returned” the island to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, but some Chinese sources criticized the government of then-premier Zhou Enlai for “ceding” it.

In December 1992, it became an island district under the municipal government of Haiphong City.

“The Vietnam-China Maritime Boundary Delimitation Agreement for the Gulf of Tonkin signed in 2000 recognized that Bach Long Vi was a Vietnam’s island,” said Vu Thanh Ca, former director of the Vietnam Institute for Sea and Island Research, “There’s absolutely no dispute over its sovereignty.”

“Given the importance of Bach Long Vi as one of Vietnam’s frontier islands, Party chief To Lam’s visit is a normal practice,” he added.

Before the general secretary, Vietnam’s presidents Nguyen Minh Triet and Truong Tan Sang visited the island in 2010 and 2014 respectively, where they made strongly worded statements about “defending every inch of our country’s sea and islands.”

The year 2014 saw heightened tensions between Vietnam and China after the latter moved a deep-water oil drilling platform to near the Paracel archipelago that both countries claim. Beijing, however, did not officially react to the visits.

“China’s government does not and cannot dispute Vietnam’s sovereignty over it,” said Huy Duong, a Vietnamese South China Sea researcher. “But this does not stop some overly nationalistic Chinese regretting that China ‘gave away’ Bach Long Vi to Vietnam.”

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Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

In October, Malaysia lodged a complaint against Vietnam, Reuters news agency reported last week.

One security analyst said that despite regional tension, there is little risk of confrontation between Malaysia and the Philippines, or Vietnam, while a regional observer said Manila and Hanoi were the transgressors in both cases.

Malaysian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamad Alamin told his country’s parliament on Thursday that the new Philippine laws encroach on Malaysia’s oil-rich state of Sabah, which borders the South China Sea.

“We’ve finalized and reviewed key issues in our protest note, which we’ll send today [Thursday] to affirm our commitment to protecting Sabah’s sovereignty and rights,” Alamin said, referring to the state that is claimed by both Malaysia and the Philippines.

Manila on Nov. 8 enacted the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act, which Alamin said extend into Malaysia’s boundaries mapped out in 1979, which Kuala Lumpur regards as internationally recognized.

The Philippines had said the laws were intended to declare Manila’s maritime claims in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and restrict foreign ships and aircraft to designated lanes.

Philippine officials did not immediately respond to Alamin’s comments.

Located off the southwestern region of the Philippines, Sabah has long been a thorny issue between the neighboring countries.

In September 2020, the two countries took their dispute over who owns Sabah to the United Nations. The dispute remains unresolved.

Separately, in June 2023, a Paris court upheld Malaysia’s challenge to a U.S. $15 billion arbitration award to purported heirs of an erstwhile ruler of the Sultanate of Sulu. Part of the former sultanate is in Sabah.

An arbitration court in Paris had in February 2022 ordered Malaysia to pay that amount to settle a colonial-era land deal.

The former Sultanate of Sulu was situated in a small archipelago in the far southern Philippines.

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An analyst at the non-profit Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies said Malaysia has had to deal with the Philippines’ expansion efforts in the South China Sea.

“From the point of view of Malaysia, the Philippines is the troublemaker-in-chief,” Benjamin Blandin, a network coordinator at the council, told BenarNews.

He said the Philippines destroyed Malaysian sovereignty markers in the Spratlys, a South China Sea island chain, in the 1970s and 1980s and later occupied Commodore Reef within the Malaysian exclusive economic zone.

A country’s EEZs extends up to 200 nautical miles from its coastline.

“So based on this bilateral ‘history,’ Malaysia can only interpret negatively any further move of the Philippines, at least as long as the Sabah case is not solved,” Blandin said.

He added that Vietnam had also destroyed markers at two maritime features in Malaysia’s EEZ before occupying them.

Another analyst, Shahriman Lockman at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, told BenarNews he blamed Vietnam’s actions.

“Recent reports of Malaysia’s protest note to Vietnam, if accurate, reflect a growing impatience with Vietnam’s recalcitrance in the South China Sea and reluctance to engage in constructive discussions – behavior that deserves as much attention as China’s,” Lockman, a senior analyst at the institute told RFA affiliate BenarNews.

“Even so, I don’t anticipate any major escalation as long as Vietnam tries to restrain its fishermen who have a tendency to intrude into foreign EEZs, not only in Southeast Asia but across the Asia Pacific.”

Similarly, “unless Manila actively pursues its legal claims, I don’t see a high risk of confrontation with Malaysia,” Lockman said.

“This [complaint] is just a routine aspect of diplomatic relations – a typical day at the office for our diplomats. ...As countries build the legal foundations for their territorial and jurisdictional claims, it’s inevitable that overlaps are going to be reiterated.”

Overlapping claims

Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Brunei and Indonesia, as well as Taiwan, hold overlapping claims in the South China Sea and its islands and reefs.

Beijing claims nearly all of the sea as its own based on so-called historic rights, which were invalidated in a 2016 arbitration ruling by the international court in The Hague,

Since the Philippines enacted its two new laws, Beijing and Manila have launched protests against each other over contested South China Sea claims.

Following Beijing’s protest, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday said his government would maintain its stance on its South China Sea territories, the state-run Philippine News Agency reported.

“[T]hey will continue to protect what they define as their sovereign territory,” he told journalists.

“Of course, we do not agree with their definition of sovereign territory.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Iman Muttaqin Yusof for BenarNews.

A joint statement released after a meeting between Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Saturday said the two countries had reached an “important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims.”

This “understanding” or agreement compromised Indonesia’s territorial and maritime rights, most regional experts said.

One security analyst. though, noted on X that a clause stating that the cooperation would proceed only under the laws of both countries may mean the agreement will end up dead in the water.

Jakarta had consistently rejected the Beijing-set boundary, which encompasses most of the South China Sea and encroaches into Jakarta’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) north of the Natuna islands, noted Eddy Pratomo, an ex-member of the Indonesian government’s law of the sea negotiation team.

“[But] with this Indonesia-China joint statement, it appears Indonesia is now acknowledging overlapping claims,” Eddy, an international law professor at Diponegoro University, told RFA affiliate BenarNews.

“This could be seen as tacit recognition of China’s dashed-line claim over the South China Sea, particularly around the North Natuna Sea,” he said.

Beijing uses the nine-dash line on maps to demarcate its extensive claims in the South China Sea, where it is embroiled in territorial disputes with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam in regional bloc Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as Taiwan.

Eddy warned that China could use the agreement with Indonesia to pressure these claimant states to accept the nine-dash line.

This China-drawn boundary infringes on the claimant states’ EEZs that give these countries exclusive rights to up to 200 nautical miles from their coastlines to regulate fishing and exploit natural resources, he said.

The Indonesia-China joint statement did not specifically say the two countries would cooperate on projects for oil and gas discovery or extraction, although that is the activity that Jakarta mainly carries out in its South China Sea EEZ, which it has named North Natuna Sea.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry attempted damage control and issued a statement Monday, saying the agreement did not amount to a recognition of Beijing’s line.

“Nothing in the cooperation may be construed in any way as a recognition of the ‘9-Dash Line’ claim. Indonesia maintains its well-known position that the claim lacks an international legal basis and is tantamount to undermining the UNCLOS 1982,” the statement said.

“Therefore, the cooperation shall, under no circumstances, affect Indonesia’s sovereignty, sovereign rights, or jurisdiction in the North Natuna Sea.” UNCLOS is the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry said the cooperation would mainly be in the fields of fisheries and fisheries conservation in the region.

BenarNews reached out to foreign ministry spokesman Roy Soemirat for details on how the agreement came about and whether Jakarta had vetted the text, but did not hear back from the official.

The agreement comes amidst a backdrop of escalating tensions in the South China Sea, a crucial maritime route for global commerce.

Just last month, during the first week of Prabowo’s presidency, Indonesian naval and coast guard vessels confronted and expelled a Chinese coast guard ship from Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in the North Natuna Sea on three occasions

‘China’s nine-dash line trap’

Backlash to news about the agreement was swift, both at home and abroad, despite the foreign ministry’s statement on Monday.

Aristyo Rizka Darmawan, a lecturer in International law at Universitas Indonesia, slammed as “vague” the Indonesian foreign ministry’s statement that it still did not recognize the nine-dash line.

The ministry’s statement “contradicts the joint statement and was released unilaterally, while the joint statement was made by Indonesia and China together,” he wrote in an analysis published Tuesday for The Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank.

That means it’s possible that China may continue to hold the interpretation presented in the join statement, he further wrote.

“Indonesia appears to be the first ASEAN member-state to implicitly recognize Beijing’s ‘nine-dash line’ … and therefore the first ASEAN country to fall into China’s nine-dash line trap,” Aristyo added.

He further said that the agreement had betrayed Indonesia’s national interest.

“It is consequential for Indonesia’s sovereign rights to use resources in its EEZ and continental shelf, and [the agreement] has significantly changed the political constellation and solidarity of ASEAN claimant states in the South China Sea,” he wrote.

Opposition lawmaker Tubagus Hasanuddin, a member of the defense and foreign affairs committee in Indonesia’s House of Representatives, questioned the government’s approach to handling sensitive regional issues, particularly concerning the South China Sea.

“The Foreign Ministry needs to exercise greater caution and responsiveness in handling official statements,” he said in a press release.

“They shouldn’t act as a ‘firefighter’ only when problems arise.”

He also raised concerns about the potential consequences of such an agreement for Indonesian fishermen, citing past instances of Chinese vessels entering Indonesian waters and engaging in illegal fishing.

“Will this economic cooperation benefit us? Will Chinese fishing vessels then be free to roam in the Natuna area to catch our fish?”

One clause in the joint cooperation agreement, however, could mean it would not go through, said Euan Graham, senior analyst at The Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“[T]he reference to “prevailing laws” means [the] agreement may be difficult for Prabowo to push through,” he noted on X.

The part of the joint statement Graham is referring to says that the joint development would be “based on the principles of ‘mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit, flexibility, pragmatism, and consensus-building,’ pursuant to their respective prevailing laws and regulations.”

Several analysts noted that Prabowo or Foreign Minister Sugiono needed to soon clarify what exactly the joint development was referring to and how the wording got into the joint statement.

‘Potential slippery slope’

The Indonesia-China joint development agreement has consequences not just for Indonesia but could potentially reshape geopolitical dynamics in Southeast Asia and draw responses from the United States and Japan, said international law expert Hikmahanto Juwana.

“Countries in dispute with China will question Indonesia’s position,” Hikmahanto, a University of Indonesia professor, told BenarNews.

The Indonesian government’s agreement with China might reflect a pragmatic alignment with a major political power, but it could potentially destabilize the region, said Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, an international relations researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“In the short term, this statement may benefit Indonesia by easing tensions with China, particularly by reducing the likelihood of coast guard confrontations in the South China Sea,” he said.

“However, in the long term, it could harm Indonesia’s standing with Southeast Asian neighbors. This is a potential slippery slope.”

Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Arie Firdaus for BenarNews.

China has also formally named 64 islands and reefs, many of which are claimed by several countries, risking escalating tensions with its neighbors.

A baseline under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, orUNCLOS, is a line that runs along the coast of a country or an island, from which the extent of the territorial sea and other maritime zones such as the exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf are measured.

A foreign ministry’s spokesperson in Beijing said in a statement on Sunday that the Chinese government delimited and announced the baselines of the territorial sea adjacent to Huangyan Dao “in accordance with international law,” referring to the shoal by its Chinese name.

“This is a natural step by the Chinese government to lawfully strengthen marine management and is consistent with international law and common practices,” the ministry said, adding: “Huangyan Dao has always been China’s territory.”

Radio Free Asia contacted the Philippine foreign department for comment but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

Scarborough Shoal, known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc, is a triangular chain of reefs about 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from Luzon, the main Philippine island. Claimed by China, the Philippines and Taiwan, the shoal has been under Beijing’s de-facto control since 2012.

In 2016, an U.N. arbitration tribunal ruled against all of China’s claims to the reefs in the South China Sea, including to the Scarborough Shoal. It also ruled that Scarborough Shoal is a rock, not an island, which means that even if the shoal is entitled to a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, it cannot generate an exclusive economic zone but instead is recognized as part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines.

‘Cornering the Philippines’

Beijing’s announcement came right after Manila passed the Maritime Zones Act and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Law, which China “strongly condemns and firmly rejects,” according to the Chinese foreign ministry. The ministry also reiterated that China had neither accepted nor participated in the 2016 arbitration, nor did China accept or recognize the ruling.

Also on Sunday, the Chinese ministries of natural resources and of civil affairs announced Chinese standard geographical names for 64 islands and reefs in the South China Sea, including several features within the Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal, both also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

The naming is seen by analysts as to assert China’s sovereignty over the features.

“China is really pushing the Philippines to the corner, now Manila has no choice but to respond,” said a regional South China Sea expert who declined to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

“As the formalization of names is also related to Vietnam’s claims over some South China Sea features, I expect the Vietnamese government to react in the near future,” added the expert, “This is an escalation of tension on China’s part.”

Separately, Jay Batongbacal, a maritime expert from the University of the Philippines College of Law, told RFA that “China’s reaction and statements are not unexpected, given their increasingly aggressive posture and belligerence toward the Philippines in the past decade.”

“They are naturally opposed to the Philippines' official actions that implement international law, UNCLOS, and the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration Award,” Batongbacal said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, while commenting on Manila’s Maritime Zones Act, said China urged the Philippines to “immediately end any unilateral move that may escalate the dispute and complicate the situation, and keep the South China Sea peaceful and stable.”

“China reserves the right of taking all measures necessary,” Mao added.

Batongbacal referred to a June clash between a Philippine resupply mission to an outpost in the Second Thomas Shoal and Chinese vessels as he warned of the possibility of China escalating risks in disputed waters.

“Given the array of military and paramilitary forces that China has been employing against the Philippines, including private fishing vessels and civilian government ships, and the illegal use of force against the Philippines on 17 June 2024, any further escalation that increases the risk of armed conflict can only come from China,” he told RFA.

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Edited by Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

The creation of more minilateral agreements, though, rather than multilateral ones like the 32-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization, are not only likely but may be more effective, they added.

A minilateral agreement is an accord between a small group of nations that have come together to achieve mutual goals or tackle shared problems, according to international relations experts.

For instance, a good example is a minilateral agreement renewed last year by the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia for joint patrols on their seas, said geopolitics expert Don McLain Gill.

“The most we can expect [in the form of a defense alliance] for now is an area- specific and time-dependent security cooperation between particular states in the region in a way that would also reflect individual varying sensitivities,” he told RFA affiliate BenarNews.

Another lecturer from the university concurred.

“I think that [creating] minilaterals is more plausible,” political science lecturer Sherwin Ona told BenarNews.

“I also think that armed enforcement has its limitations and has a tendency for escalation.”

Established in 1949, NATO commits its 32-member countries to each other’s defense in the event any are attacked. Aside from the United States, other NATO members include the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, and Canada.

Conversation about a regional NATO, Asian or Southeast Asian, revived after now-Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba wrote a paper late September for think-tank Hudson Institute about his proposal for such a defense alliance.

“[T]he absence of a collective self-defense system like NATO in Asia means that wars are likely to break out because there is no obligation for mutual defense,” Ichiba wrote late September.

“Under these circumstances, the creation of an Asian version of NATO is essential to deter China by its Western allies,” added the then-candidate for prime minister added.

The proposal was rejected by the United States and India said it doesn’t share Ishiba’s vision.

Similar ideas have irritated Beijing, which sees itself as the main focus of these proposals, in the same way that Moscow has accused NATO of concentrating its defense efforts against Russia.

In Southeast Asia specifically as well, the idea of a NATO-like grouping has been talked about in response to some countries claiming harassment by Beijing’s vessels in the South China Sea, where they have overlapping claims.

Beijing claims most of the South China Sea, but its claims overlap those of Taiwan, which isn’t a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, all of which are.

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. trod carefully when asked on Tuesday about a grouping similar to NATO consisting of the 10 members of ASEAN.

“I don’t think it is possible at this time because of the dichotomies and divergence between country interests,” Teodoro answered at the venue of a private conference in Manila.

Still, he acknowledged the need to boost multilateral security alliances.

Teodoro noted that Manila has a bilateral defense alliance with Washington since 1951, even before it became one of the Southeast Asian countries to set up the ASEAN in 1967.

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Sherwin Ona, a political science lecturer at Manila’s De La Salle University, told BenarNews that ASEAN nations would stick to the bloc’s “non-interference policy.”

Besides, some Southeast Asian countries are very pro-Beijing because their economies are heavily dependent on China, indicated Ona.

“I agree [with Teodoro] about the beneficial relationship between countries that are pro-Beijing.”

Another reason Southeast Asian countries may be cool to the idea of an “Asian NATO” is because they have different security interests, noted a researcher at the New Delhi-based think-tank Observer Research Foundation.

“This is because most countries are convinced that a multilateral security architecture will only elevate regional insecurities, and make them subservient to great power contestations,” Abhishek Sharma wrote in the Deccan Herald.

‘Loose, flexible’ minilaterals

Minilaterals are “loose and flexible,” believes Gill.

“This is not NATO’s established collective security structure,” he said.

Minilaterals are “only as good as they last.”

Gill explained that if one country in a three-nation minilateral agreement felt it did not any longer share the same interest with the other two, “it can walk out anytime.”

Geopolitical analyst Julio Amador III believes a network of “minilateral ties” might be able to offset this shortcoming and would be more effective.

Additionally, he said there was a way ASEAN as a bloc could become “a formidable diplomatic counterweight.”

If the group’s members, particularly those that drift towards China, agree that there are some issues “that go beyond national interests, that there are issues that do matter to the collective interests of the group,” ASEAN could be powerful, Amador said.

However, De La Salle University’s Gill said that the character of Southeast Asian cooperation tended to be based mostly on mutual interest.

“An ASEAN version of NATO is unlikely going to happen given the nature of ASEAN,” he said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.

The navy said in a press release that the crew of the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle carried out a three-week training session on Oct. 4-25 in the Mediterranean in order to regain operational capability after a recent technical shutdown that lasted nearly four months.

The crew has now embarked on a final four-week logistical and operational preparation at the quayside before the next deployment of the Charles de Gaulle in a “constituted carrier battle group,” the navy said in the release without specifying where the carrier strike group would be heading to.

Before this announcement, however, the Naval News quoted a senior French officer as saying that the months-long deployment would take place in the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and “possibly the far reaches of the Pacific Ocean.”

The carrier strike group could make first, “historic” calls to Japan and the Philippines, the Paris-based publication said.

Apart from the Charles de Gaulle, the strike group may include several other warships, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, a logistics support ship and some support and assistance vessels. The air wing is set to include two E-2C Hawkeye AEW aircraft, 24 Rafale Marine jets and four helicopters.

About 3,000 sailors and naval aviators would take part in several exercises during the deployment, among which a multinational exercise would “focus on the theme of maritime security in the Indonesian straits,” Naval News said.

China’s reaction

“This deployment is significant because it marks a major expansion of France’s presence in the Indo-Pacific,” said Benjamin Blandin, a network coordinator at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies.

“Since the announcement of France’s Indo-Pacific Strategy in 2019, the French military’s presence in the region has really grown and diversified,” Blandin told Radio Free Asia.

Last week, Taiwan’s ministry of defense said that a French naval vessel sailed through the Taiwan Strait from the south to the north. Notably, the Prairial (F731) – a Floreal-class frigate – was sailing on the west side of the median line closer to China, unlike U.S. and Canadian ships, which normally pass east of the median line closer to Taiwan.

Beijing did not immediately protest against the transit but on Nov. 4, the Communist Party-sanctioned Global Times published an article denouncing the possible deployment of the Charles de Gaulle carrier strike group in the Indo-Pacific.

The Chinese news outlet quoted analysts as saying that the deployment “is an attempt to pander to NATO’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific, which is detrimental to regional peace and stability.”

Zhang Junshe, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times that despite being the only country outside the U.S. that possesses a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, France’s strength in this area was limited.

Zhang warned that “neither the countries nor the people of the Asia-Pacific region want external forces to build up their military presence in the region to sow discord and intensify regional tensions.”

French comeback

Paris has a long history of involvement in the region and after a period of relative inactivity, it seems it is making a strategic comeback.

France has several arms deals in the Asia-Pacific, with Indonesia, Singapore and most recently, a US$438-million aid project to provide 40 patrol vessels and logistical support to the Philippine Coast Guard.

“The Philippines can be seen as the cornerstone of France’s strategic presence in the region,” said Blandin.

France and the Philippines agreed to enhance cooperation in December 2023 and a French defense attaché office was established in the Philippines in May this year.

Frigate Vendémiaire participated in the Balikatan exercise in April and the destroyer Bretagne made a port call in Manila from May 31 to June 4. The frigate Prairial that recently transited the Taiwan Strait also conducted a goodwill visit to Cebu between Oct. 22-25.

“The French military is in the process of negotiating a visiting forces agreement with the Philippines, which is expected to conclude in the first semester of 2025,” said Blandin. “Paris wants to put its name back on the map.”

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Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

Speaking hours before polls opened in America, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said they believed Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump would continue with both security arrangements.

“We have an understanding on both sides of politics in the U.S. about the importance of AUKUS,” Wong told reporters. “In terms of the U.S. election, we will work with whomever the American people choose … for president, and also for the Congress of the day.”

“Historically, we’ve had an alliance for many, many years,” she added, “and it is a relationship that is bigger than the events of the day.”

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Wong added that Canberra saw the Quad likewise “retaining its importance regardless of the outcome of the election,” given that its four member countries share similar visions for global security.

As is hinted by its name, AUKUS ties together Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, while the Quad is the name given to a forum involving Australia, the United States, India and Japan.

Along with the “trilateral” between the United States, Japan and Seoul, AUKUS and the Quad have been pushed by the Biden administration in its efforts to build a “patchwork” of alliances to counter China’s rising military aspirations, even if U.S. officials deny that’s its explicit aim.

‘Nasty’ Kevin Rudd

Jaishankar, the Indian external affairs minister, said Indian-U.S. ties would likewise be unchanged whoever is in the White House.

“We have actually seen steady progress in our relationship with the U.S. over the last five presidencies, including an earlier Trump presidency,” Jaishankar said. “We are very confident that whatever the verdict, our relationship with the United States will only grow.”

“In terms of the Quad, I remind you that actually the Quad was revived under a Trump presidency in 2017,” he added, noting that the group’s foreign ministers even held a rare in-person meeting during COVID in 2020, when most international meetings were being held virtually.

“That should tell you something about the prospects of it,” he said.

However, the prospect of a return of a Trump presidency would likely shake up U.S. alliances with its Indo-Pacific partners at least a bit.

Australia’s ambassador in Washington and two-time former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has a testy relationship with the former president, having – prior to his current diplomatic appointment – called him “nuts,” a “traitor to the West’’ and the “most destructive president in history.”

Trump responded by labeling Rudd “nasty” and suggesting he might need to be removed as Australian ambassador if he wins.

“I don’t know much about him. I heard he was a little bit nasty. I hear he’s not the brightest bulb,” Trump told British conservative politician and broadcaster Nigel Farage on GB News in a March interview.

“If he’s at all hostile, he will not be there long,” he said.

But both Wong and Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who served as Rudd’s deputy prime minister in 2013, have said Rudd would not be replaced as ambassador if Trump wins Tuesday’s election.

The former prime minister was doing “an excellent job” as ambassador in Washington, Wong told Australian media earlier this year.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns.

Late last month, Radio Free Asia reported on Vietnam’s development of an airstrip on Barque Canada reef, an artificial island within the Spratly archipelago that Malaysia also claims. The reef’s landfill area is estimated to have expanded to nearly 2.5 square kilometers (617.7 acres) as of October 2024, more than doubling in a year.

Two unidentified officials told Reuters that the Malaysian government sent a letter of complaint to Vietnam’s foreign ministry in early October, before RFA’s report, “but has so far received no reply.”

Malaysia and Vietnam are among the six parties that hold overlapping claims in the South China Sea and to its numerous islands and reefs, alongside China, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan.

The Philippines has said it was “monitoring” Vietnam’s island-building activities but has not officially protested.

The recently leaked letter of complaint, if true, could be a rare point of tension as until now Malaysia has only complained about Vietnamese fishermen’s “illegal activities” in Malaysian waters.

Kuala Lumpur claims at least 12 features in the Spratlys, including Vietnam-controlled Amboyna Cay and Barque Canada reef, and Philippines-controlled Commodore and Rizal reefs. Malaysia has a physical presence on five features - Swallow, Ardasier, Erica, Mariveles and Investigator reefs – which are also claimed by some other parties.

Due to the complexity of those overlapping claims, regional countries generally stay quiet about their neighbors’ island building and instead focus their attention on China, which has reclaimed the most land in the South China Sea and completed the militarization of three large artificial islands.

Anwar visits China

Malaysia has repeatedly rejected China’s claims in the South China Sea, most recently in 2023 over the latest edition of the Beijing-issued standard map of China, which encompasses areas lying off the coast of Malaysian Borneo.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has reiterated on many occasions that Malaysia would continue to conduct oil and gas exploration in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, despite objections from China.

Anwar is in China on an official visit from Nov. 4-7, his third in two years, and observers say the trip signals a closer relationship between Malaysia and its big neighbor.

“That may explain if there is any recent friction between Malaysia and Vietnam, which has had big issues with China in the South China Sea,” said Viet Hoang, a Vietnamese maritime expert.

The Chinese government has not said anything publicly about the reclamation works done by Vietnam but Chinese analysts have warned about the risk of a new flashpoint.

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Malaysia is the rotating chair of the Southeast Asian grouping ASEAN in 2025 and its support would bolster China’s confidence in disputed waters, Viet said.

For its part, “Anwar’s government seems to view China as a significant economic opportunity and is willing to set aside other issues to pursue this opportunity,” said Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

However, if Kuala Lumpur managed to carry on with some oil projects it is mainly thanks to the fact that “they’ve had a longer history of conducting such projects and are physically further away from China,” Chong said.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

The Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative, or SCSPI, a government-sanctioned think tank, said on the social media platform X that the fishermen “were detained in April and May” for illegally fishing activities in the waters around the Paracels. It did not provide other details including the number of detainees.

Vietnam, China and Taiwan all claim sovereignty over the island chain, known as Xisha islands in Chinese and Hoang Sa in Vietnam, but Beijing has been controlling the entire area since 1974, after defeating troops of the then South Vietnam government.

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Last week, a Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesperson said Hanoi had “resolutely” protested and demanded China “immediately release all the fishermen and fishing vessels, appropriately compensate them for the damages and stop the harassment against Vietnamese fishermen” without giving any further details.

Vietnam says that the Paracels have been a traditional fishing ground for generations of its fishermen but China has been stopping and expelling Vietnamese vessels from the waters around the islands, and sometimes detaining them and demanding fines.

Last month, Vietnam said Chinese law enforcement personnel boarded a fishing boat from Quang Ngai province and beat the crew with iron bars, seriously injuring four of them, prompting the Vietnamese government to publicly protest.

‘Destructive’ fishing activities

The SCSPI said that the Vietnamese fishermen were detained for “harvesting live corals, electrofishing and other environmentally destructive activities.”

It also published photos that it said showed explosives and detonators used by Vietnamese fishermen in the Paracels.

On Nov. 1, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a press briefing in Beijing that China hoped Vietnam would “earnestly raise the awareness of its fishermen and make sure they will not engage in illegal activities in waters under China’s jurisdiction.”

Vietnamese authorities insisted that, as the Paracel islands belong to Vietnam, it is within the fishermen’s rights to operate in the archipelago’s waters.

This year, the Quang Ngai provincial government told media that most of the fishing boats from the province used non-destructive methods such as trawling, line fishing and diving.

The Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, a U.S. think tank, said as for trawling, “China and Vietnam account for the largest share of overall fish catch in the South China Sea.”

In its report ‘Deep Blue Scars’ from Dec. 2023, AMTI also accused China of causing the most coral reef destruction in the South China Sea through dredging and land fill, burying roughly 4,648 acres (18.8km2) of reefs.” Vietnam came second with 1,402 acres (5.7km2).

Chinese fishermen have also been using an extremely harmful method of “dragging specially made brass propellers” to dig up reef surfaces for giant clam harvesting, AMTI’s report said.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

A foreign ministry spokesperson told a press briefing in Hanoi on Thursday that the Vietnamese government had “resolutely” protested and demanded China “immediately release all the fishermen and fishing vessels, appropriately compensate them for the damages and stop the harassment against Vietnamese fishermen” operating in the contested Paracel archipelago in the South China Sea.

Vietnam, China and Taiwan all claim sovereignty over the island chain, known as Xisha islands in Chinese, but Beijing has been controlling the entire area since 1974 after defeating and expelling troops of the government of the then South Vietnam.

The Vietnamese spokesperson, however, did not provide any details on how many fishermen had been detained or when.

China had not responed to Vietnam’s accusation at time of publication but on Thursday, the Chinese defense ministry’s spokesperson, Zhang Xiaogang, told reporters that the Chinese military wished to “deepen the traditional friendship as comrades and brothers with Vietnam, as well as enhance strategic mutual trust.”

Last month, Vietnam protested after Chinese law enforcement personnel boarded a fishing boat from Quang Ngai province and beat the crew with iron bars, seriously injuring four of them.

The crew claimed that most of the equipment on the boat was smashed and taken away along with the catch.

China responded by saying that “on-site operations were professional and restrained, and no injuries were found.”

China’s ramped up activities

Separately, the Chinese defense ministry spokesperson revealed on Thursday that the People’s Liberation Army navy recently conducted the first ever dual aircraft carrier exercise in the South China Sea.

The exercise was carried out in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea, with real combat scenarios, Zhang told a press briefing in Beijing without specifying the time frame.

The navy released photos and videos featuring the dual carrier formations led by China’s first aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong, with more than 10 destroyers, frigates, and replenishment ships.

According to the Xinhua news agency, the multi-day exercise was conducted between the Mid-Autumn festival (Sept. 17) and the National Day holidays (Oct 1-7).

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Over the past year, Beijing has intensified its activities in the South China Sea, where it has disputes with some of its neighbors, including Vietnam and the Philippines.

Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told a forum on the South China Sea that while in the last 15 years or so, China mainly usedg coercive tactics known as gray-zone activities, “the number and intensity of incidents involving physical force and threat of armed violence has increased.”

Maritime tensions between China and the Philippines have risen sharply this year, as well as between China and Taiwan, which Beijing considers a Chinese province that shoul be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

On Oct. 14, the Chinese military launched a large-scale exercise, called Joint Sword-2024B, in the air and waters of the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan island.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, said in a new report there are indications Hanoi is developing airstrips on several of the artificial islands, and “signs of potential military structures” have also been spotted across a number of features.

Radio Free Asia reported on Oct. 25 on the construction of a runway on Barque Canada reef, the largest-to-date reclaimed island under Vietnam’s control in the Spratly archipelago.

Known as Bai Thuyen Chai in Vietnamese, the reef has undergone intensive development since 2021 and its current total landfill area is estimated at nearly 2.5 square kilometers, or 617.7 acres.

The airstrip has since been lengthened from 1,050 meters to approximately 1,600 meters and could be extended to 3,000 meters or more, long enough to accommodate larger aircraft.

Until now, Vietnam has only one 1,300-meter airstrip on the islands in the South China Sea, on an island called Spratly. The new runway “significantly expands Vietnam’s options for deploying combat aircraft to the Spratly Islands,” AMTI said, adding that it “may not be the only runway Hanoi has planned for the Spratlys.”

The AMTI said there may be plans to develop airstrips on at least two other reclaimed islands, Pearson reef and Ladd reef. Both of the features are being built up fast.

Military structures

Besides the runways, AMTI said in its report that new formations of berms, or raised barriers, encasing six areas “are visible in recent imagery of Barque Canada Reef, Central Reef, Tennent Reef, Namyit Island, South Reef, and Ladd Reef.”

“Given the coastal orientation of most formations, it’s possible these areas could be intended to house anti-ship artillery or missile platforms,” the group said.

Analysts have said that military bases and runways in the Spratlys would bolster Vietnam’s strategic capabilities to counter China’s power projection in the South China Sea.

Beijing has fully developed and militarized at least three artificial islands, known as “The Big Three”, including Fiery Cross, Subi reef and Mischief reef in the Spratly archipelago.

“Three years from when it first began, Vietnam is still surprising observers with the ever-increasing scope of its dredging and landfill in the Spratly Islands,” AMTI said.

Yet as reclamation work continues fast on new features and “in unexpected directions,” the think tank said the extent of new capabilities Vietnam would have remains to be seen.

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Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Global Times.

With RIMPAC now underway, the lands and waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands are being intensively bombed and shelled as participating forces practice amphibious landings and urban combat training, and the Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) find their sovereignty once again violated after more than 130 years of colonization by the US.

RIMPAC aims to fortify the colonization and militarization of the Pacific, ensuring the security of the West’s imperialist agenda against the rise of China and other threats to the US-led capitalist system.

In the interest of advancing a political education around the history and purpose of INDOPACOM as part of U.S. militarism, the Solidarity Network for the Black Alliance for Peace has published this comprehensive Fact Sheet on INDOPACOM.

WHAT IS INDOPACOM?

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, or INDOPACOM, is one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s eleven unified combatant commands that together span the globe. INDOPACOM’s area of responsibility (AOR) covers half of the earth’s surface, stretching from California to India’s western border, and from Antarctica to the North Pole. INDOPACOM claims 38 nations within its AOR, which together comprise over half of the world’s population. Its AOR includes the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, while also encompassing small island nations, such as Diego Garcia, Guam, Palau, and Samoa, all of which are under some form of U.S. colonial occupation. INDOPACOM comprises multiple components and sub-unified commands. They include U.S. Forces Korea, U.S. Forces Japan, U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific, U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Marine Forces Pacific, U.S. Pacific Air Forces, and U.S. Army Pacific.

According to INDOPACOM, this large and diverse area is optimal terrain to implement its “combat credible deterrence strategy.” This includes an estimated 366 bases and installations across 16 nations–more than any other command structure due to large concentrations in Guam, Hawai’i, Japan, Korea, and Okinawa. Many of the military installations strategically surround China and major trade routes.

Headquartered at Camp H.M. Smith of occupied Honolulu, Hawai’i, INDOPACOM claims to enhance stability and ensure “a free and open Indo-Pacific” through military and economic partnerships with countries in the region. Nonetheless, it also claims to advance “U.S. national security objectives while protecting national interests.” INDOPACOM states its mission is to build a combat-ready force “capable of denying its adversaries sustained air and sea dominance.”

THE HISTORY OF INDOPACOM

INDOPACOM is the U.S. military’s oldest and largest combatant command. It is the result of a merger between three commands–Far East Command, Pacific Command and Alaskan Command–which were established after World War II in 1947. The first commander of the Far East Command, General Douglas MacArthur, was tasked with “carrying out occupation duties of Korea, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, the Bonin Islands, the Philippines and the Mariana Islands.” From the end of WWII to 1958, the U.S. military conducted 67 nuclear tests throughout the Marshall Islands under “Operation Crossroads.” It conducted another 36 nuclear detonations at Christmas Island and Johnston Atoll in 1962 under “Operation Dominic,” which permanently destroyed the natural biomes.

Against the backdrop of the Korean War, the key predecessor to INDOPACOM, Pacific Command, was primarily oriented toward combat operations in Korea and later, the Philippines. The ongoing Korean War has resulted in millions of casualties as well as the demarcation of North and South Korea since 1953. By 1957, Pacific Command saw a major expansion and strategic reorientation of its AOR, absorbing the Far East Command and most of the Alaskan Command. Camp H.M. Smith of occupied Honolulu, Hawai’i was selected as the new headquarters because the U.S. Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, the largest maritime invasion force in the world, was already located there.

Throughout the U.S. war on Vietnam, Pacific Command controlled all U.S. military forces, including South Vietnamese assets, and operations within the country. Leading both the U.S. Pacific Air Forces and Pacific Fleet, Pacific Command’s brutal campaigns resulted in some of the most egregious atrocities, such as the My Lai massacre in 1968. Pacific Command’s operations also included some of the heaviest aerial bombardments, like “Operation Rolling Thunder.” In its numerous campaigns, which also included “Operation Bolo,” “Linebacker I and II”, “Ranch Hand,” and “Arc Lightdropping,” Pacific Command dropped over 5 million tons of bombs and at least 11 million gallons of the highly corrosive herbicide known as “Agent Orange” on Southeast Asia. Pacific Command was also responsible for covert bombing operations targeting Cambodia and Laos during the war, dropping over 2.5 million tons of bombs through “Operation Menu.”

Pacific Command saw subsequent alterations to its AOR after U.S. forces fled Vietnam in 1973. Responsibility for Afghanistan and Pakistan was delegated to US Central Command after its inauguration in 1983, while Pacific Command assumed new responsibility for China and North Korea that same year. U.S. Secretaries of Defense Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield respectively oversaw territorial expansions to Pacific Command’s AOR in 1989 and 2002, into INDOPACOM’s current formation.

INDOPACOM NOW

The United States continues to view the Asia-Pacific region as pivotal to the pursuit of its material interests, emphasizing that the region is home to some of the largest and fastest-growing economies and militaries. The Obama administration’s 2011 “Pivot to Asia” marked a stronger push by Pacific Command for confrontation not only with China but any nation or movement that poses a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region.

In 2018, Pacific Command was rebranded to Indo-Pacific Command, or INDOPACOM, as it is known today. This move was meant to recognize the strategic importance of India, following heightened aggression toward China during the Obama and Trump presidencies. INDOPACOM regularly conducts joint naval training exercises in the South China Sea with countries like Japan and Australia in clear violation of international law and even secretly stationed U.S. special-operations and support forces in Taiwan since 2021.

Massive military exercises like the largest international maritime warfare training, the “Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC),” and others like “Cape North” and Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center trainings occur frequently in occupied Hawai’i and Guam, without the consent of the Indigenous populations. In 2023, INDOPACOM carried out new iterations of its“Talisman Sabre” exercise in Australia and its “Super Garuda Shield” exercise in Indonesia. These exercises involved tens of thousands of military personnel from 13 and 19 nations, respectively, including the Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Tonga for the first time.

INDOPACOM’s major military partners in the Asia-Pacific region include Japan and South Korea. The U.S. military holds significant leverage over each nation’s armed forces via agreements undergirding the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ), essentially commanding additional joint military structures with their own distinct mission, vision, and objectives in support of INDOPACOM. USFK continues to prevent reunification in Korea as part of its mission to “defend the Republic of Korea,” while USFJ remains committed to the colonial occupation of Okinawa as part of its mission of “provid[ing] a ready and lethal capability…in support of the U.S.-Japan Alliance.”

BAP AGAINST INDOPACOM

INDOPACOM works to extend U.S. military influence throughout the Asia-Pacific region and to promote the militarism and violence required to fulfill the material interests of the U.S. ruling class. By portraying China as a global bogeyman, INDOPACOM serves to obfuscate the indigeneity and legitimacy of liberation movements like those occurring on the occupied islands of Guam, Hawai’i, Okinawa, and Samoa, as well as nearly every other nation across the region from Indonesia and Malaysia to the Philippines. INDOPACOM’s aggressive role in the region serves to create the very instability it uses to justify its own existence and mask the responsibility of U.S. officials provoking new wars.

The Black Alliance for Peace stands against the influence and power of INDOPACOM, and the ever-increasing militarization of the region. Informed by the Black Radical Peace Tradition, we understand that peace is not the absence of conflict, but the achievement, by popular struggle and self-defense, of a world liberated from nuclear armament and proliferation, unjust war, and global white supremacy. As referenced in our Principles of Unity, BAP takes a resolute anti-colonial, anti-imperialist position that links the international role of the U.S. empire–one based on war, aggression and exploitation–to the domestic war against poor and working-class African/Black people in the United States.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Black Alliance for Peace.

There was a time when calls for a nuclear-free Europe rang across the continent. It began with the Stockholm Appeal (1950), which opened with the powerful words ‘We demand the outlawing of atomic weapons as instruments of intimidation and mass murder of peoples’ and then deepened with the Appeal for European Nuclear Disarmament (1980), which issued the chilling warning ‘We are entering the most dangerous decade in human history’. Roughly 274 million people signed the Stockholm Appeal, including – as is often reported – the entire adult population of the Soviet Union. Yet, since the European appeal of 1980, it feels as if each decade has been more and more dangerous than the previous one. ‘It is still 90 seconds to midnight’, the editors at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the keepers of the Doomsday Clock) wrote in January. Midnight is Armageddon. In 1949, the clock sat at three minutes to midnight, and in 1980 it had retreated slightly from the precipice, back to seven minutes to midnight. By 2023, however, the clock’s hand had moved all the way up to ninety seconds to midnight, where it remains, the closest we have ever been to full-scale annihilation.

This precarious situation is threatening to reach a tipping point in Europe today. To understand the dangerous possibilities that could be unleashed by the intensified provocations around Ukraine, we collaborated with No Cold War to produce briefing no. 14, NATO’s Actions in Ukraine Are More Dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Please read this text carefully and circulate it as widely as possible.

For the past two years, Europe’s largest war since 1945 has been raging in Ukraine. The root cause of this war is the US-driven attempt to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) into Ukraine. This violates the promises the West made to the Soviet Union during the end of the Cold War, such as that NATO would move ‘not one inch eastward’, as US Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. Over the past decade, the Global North has repeatedly snubbed Russian requests for security guarantees. It was this disregard for Russian concerns that led to the outbreak of the conflict in 2014 and the war in 2022.

Today, a nuclear-armed NATO and a nuclear-armed Russia are in direct conflict in Ukraine. Instead of taking steps to bring this war to an end, NATO has made several new announcements in recent months that threaten to escalate the situation into a still more serious conflict with the potential to spill beyond Ukraine’s borders. It is no exaggeration to say that this conflict has created the greatest threat to world peace since the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).

This extremely dangerous escalation confirms the correctness of the majority of US experts on Russia and Eastern Europe, who have long warned against the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe. In 1997, George Kennan, the principal architect of US policy in the Cold War, said that this strategy is ‘the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era’. The Ukraine war and the dangers of further escalation fully affirm the seriousness of his warning.

Elif Uras (Turkey), Kapital, 2009.

How Is NATO Escalating the Conflict in Ukraine?

The most dangerous recent developments in this conflict are the decisions by the US and Britain in May to authorise Ukraine to use weapons supplied by the two countries to conduct military attacks inside Russia. Ukraine’s government immediately used this in the most provocative way by attacking Russia’s ballistic missile early warning system. This warning system plays no role in the Ukraine war but is a central part of Russia’s defence system against strategic nuclear attack. In addition, the British government supplied Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles that have a range of over 250 km (155 miles) and can hit targets not only on the battleground but far inside Russia. The use of NATO weapons to attack Russia risks an equivalent Russian counter-response, threatening to spread the war beyond Ukraine.

This was followed by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s June announcement that a NATO headquarter for operations in the Ukraine war had been created at the US military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, with 700 initial staff. On 7 June, French President Emmanuel Macron said that his government was working to ‘finalise a coalition’ of NATO countries willing to send troops to Ukraine to ‘train’ Ukrainian forces. This would place NATO forces directly in the war. As the Vietnam War and other conflicts have shown, such ‘trainers’ organise and direct fighting, thus becoming targets for attacks.

Nadia Abu-Aitah (Switzerland), Breaking Free, 2021.

Why Is Escalation in Ukraine More Dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis?

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the product of an adventurist miscalculation by Soviet leadership that the US would tolerate the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles only 144 km from the nearest US shore and roughly 1,800 km from Washington. Such a deployment would have made it impossible for the US to defend against a nuclear strike and would have ‘levelled the playing field’, since the US already had such capabilities vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. The US, predictably, made it clear that this would not be tolerated and that it would prevent it by any means necessary, including nuclear war. With the Doomsday Clock at 12 minutes to midnight, the Soviet leadership realised its miscalculation and, after a few days of intense crisis, withdrew the missiles. This was followed by a relaxation of US-Soviet tensions, leading to the first Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963).

No bullets flew between the US and the USSR in 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an extremely dangerous short-term incident that could have ignited large-scale – including nuclear – war. However, unlike the Ukraine war, it did not flow from an already existing and intensifying dynamic of war by either the US or the USSR. Thus, while extremely dangerous, the situation could also be, and was, rapidly resolved.

The situation in Ukraine, as well as the growing conflict around China, are more structurally dangerous. Direct confrontation is taking place between NATO and Russia, where the US just authorised direct military strikes (imagine if, during the 1962 crisis, Cuban forces armed and trained by the Soviet Union had carried out major military strikes in Florida). Meanwhile, the US is directly raising military tensions with China around Taiwan and the South China Sea, as well as in the Korean Peninsula. The US government understands that it cannot withstand erosion to its position of global primacy and rightly believes that it may lose its economic dominance to China. That is why it increasingly moves issues onto the military terrain, where it still maintains an advantage. The US position on Gaza is significantly determined by its understanding that it cannot afford a blow to its military supremacy, embodied in the regime that it controls in Israel.

The US and its NATO partners are responsible for 74.3% of global military spending. Within the context of the US’s increasing drive for war and use of military means, the situation in Ukraine, and potentially around China, are, in reality, as dangerous, and potentially more dangerous, than the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Tatiana Grinevich (Belarus), The River of Wishes, 2012.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by CGTN.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2024. Photo: Xinhua

A foreboding article was published on April 24. It was pointed out that China had provided a berth to a Russian ship Angara that is purportedly “tied to North Korea-Russia arms transfers.”

Reuters cited Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) – that boasts of itself to be “the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank” – which claims Angara, since August 2023, has transported “thousands of containers believed to contain North Korean munitions,” [italics added] to Russian ports.

Container ships transport containers, and along the way they dock in certain harbors. Until satellite photos have X-ray capability any speculation about what is inside a container will be just that: speculation. Discerning readers will readily pick up on this.

Despite China repeatedly coming out in favor of peace, Reuters, nonetheless, plays up US concerns over perceived support by Beijing for “Moscow’s war” (what Moscow calls a “special military operation”) in Ukraine.

And right on cue, US secretary-of-state Antony Blinken shows up in Beijing echoing a list of US concerns vis-à-vis China.

Blinken had public words for China: “In my meetings with NATO Allies earlier this month and with our G7 partners just last week, I heard that same message: fueling Russia’s defense industrial base not only threatens Ukrainian security; it threatens European security. Beijing cannot achieve better relations with Europe while supporting the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War. As we’ve told China for some time, ensuring transatlantic security is a core US interest. In our discussions today, I made clear that if China does not address this problem, we will.”

It would seem clear that the Taiwan Straits is a core China interest, no? Or is it only US core interests that matter?

Blinken: “I also expressed our concern about the PRC’s unfair trade practices and the potential consequences of industrial overcapacity to global and US markets, especially in a number of key industries that will drive the 21st century economy, like solar panels, electric vehicles, and the batteries that power them. China alone is producing more than 100 percent of global demand for these products, flooding markets, undermining competition, putting at risk livelihoods and businesses around the world.”

It sounds like sour grapes from the US that China’s R&D and manufacturing is out-competing the US. Take, for example, that the US sanctions Huawei while China allows Apple to sell its products unhindered in China. China has hit back at the rhetoric of “overcapacity.”

Blinken complained of “PRC’s dangerous actions in the South China Sea, including against routine Philippine maintenance operations and maritime operations near the Second Thomas Shoal. Freedom of navigation and commerce in these waterways is not only critical to the Philippines, but to the US and to every other nation in the Indo-Pacific and indeed around the world.”

Mentioning freedom of navigation implies that China is preventing such. Why is freedom of navigation in the South China Sea critical to the US? Second Thomas Shoal is a colonial designation otherwise known as Renai Jiao in China. The “routine Philippine maintenance operations and maritime operations” that Blinken speaks of are for a navy landing craft that was intentionally grounded by the Philippines in 1999. Since then, the Philippines has been intermittently resupplying its soldiers stationed there.

Blinken: “I reaffirmed the US’s ‘one China’ policy and stressed the critical importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

How does the US stationing US soldiers on the Chinese territory of Taiwan without approval from Beijing reaffirm the US’s commitment to a one-China policy? The Shanghai Communiqué of 1972 states “the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position.”

Blinken: “I also raised concerns about the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and democratic institutions as well as transnational repression, ongoing human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, and a number of individual human rights cases.”

Evidence of human rights abuses in Xinjiang? This is a definitive downplay from the previous allegations of a genocide against Uyghurs. It would be embarrassing to continue to accuse China of a genocide in Xinjiang due to a paucity of bodies which is a sine qua non for such a serious allegation as a genocide; meanwhile the US-armed Israel is blowing up hospitals and schools with ten-of-thousands of confirmed Palestinian civilian bodies. Even if there are human rights abuses in Xinjiang (which should be deplored were there condemnatory evidence), the US would still be morally assailable for its selective outrage.

Blinken: “I encouraged China to use its influence to discourage Iran and its proxies from expanding the conflict in the Middle East, and to press Pyongyang to end its dangerous behavior and engage in dialogue.”

Is the US militarily backing a genocide of Palestinians a “conflict.” Are US military maneuvers in the waters near North Korea “safe behavior”?

Blinken responded to a question: “But now it is absolutely critical that the support that [China’s] providing – not in terms of weapons but components for the defense industrial base – again, things like machine tools, microelectronics, where it is overwhelmingly the number-one supplier to Russia. That’s having a material effect in Ukraine and against Ukraine, but it’s also having a material effect in creating a growing [sic] that Russia poses to countries in Europe and something that has captured their attention in a very intense way.”

Are the ATACMS, Javelins, HIMARS, Leopard tanks, drones, artillery, Patriot missile defense, etc supposed to be absolutely uncritical and have no material effect on the fighting in Ukraine? And who is posing a threat to who? European countries are funding and arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia not vice versa? It sounds perversely Orwellian.

*****

From Biden to Harris to Yellen to Raimondo to Sullivan to Blinken, US officials again and again try to browbeat and put down their Chinese colleagues.

At the opening meeting on 18 March 2021 of the US-China talks in Anchorage, Alaska, the arrogance of Blinken and the US was put on notice by the rebuke of Chinese foreign affairs official Yang Jiechi: “[T]he US does not have the qualification to say it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.” It doesn’t seem to have sunk in for the American side.

The Russia-China relationship is solid. China’s economy is growing strongly. Scores of countries are clamoring to join BRICS+ and dedollarization is well underway. Yet, the US continues to try to bully the world’s largest – and still rapidly growing – economy. This strategy appears to affirm the commonly referred to aphorism about the definition of insanity: trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

The professor answered, “There is no question that the Chinese want Taiwan back. They want to make Taiwan part of China…. There is also no question that the Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China. They want to be a sovereign state. These are two irreconcilable goals.”

First, it must be stated that much of what Mearsheimer says about geopolitical issues (particularly, with respect to the United States’ agenda in the world) comes across as arrived at by honest, factual, realistic appraisal.

It is axiomatic that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) would like the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan) fully back in the fold. As far as the PRC is concerned, Taiwan is de jure a part of China, and the United Nations and 181 countries concur that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. This includes the United States. Mearsheimer’s words elide this reality. His words also appear in contradiction since he admits that Taiwan is not sovereign. Taiwan is not a country. Mearsheimer’s wording aligns with the oleaginous US position toward the PRC and Taiwan.

In US diplomacy, words too often do not match facts or deeds. The US signed on to the One China policy. However, because of the increasing alarm that the economic, technological, military advancement of the PRC is eclipsing the US’s arrogant claim to full spectrum dominance, the US has precipitated, what looks on its face to be, an abject desperation to maintain its place in at the top of the world order, as it defines this order.

As for Mearsheimer’s evidence-free claim of there being “no question that the Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China.” That is disputable. Legacy media will point to the recent presidential victory of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Lai Ching-te to buttress this claim of Taiwan’s desire for sovereignty.

While Lai led with 40.05% of the vote, the opposition Guomindang (KMT) presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih received 33.49% of the votes, and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je received 26.45%. So roughly 60% of the electorate’s votes did not go to the DPP. Earlier Ko had proposed a failed KMT-TPP alliance, which suggests something other than a sovereignist agenda for 60% of Taiwanese voters.

Looking at the voting results might, therefore, lead one to refute the “no question” Taiwan wants to be separate from the PRC claim to be itself questionable.

Mearsheimer continued, “The interesting question, at this point in time, is whether or not the Chinese are going to try to conquer Taiwan by military force.”

To most of the world Taiwan is a part of One China. It is obvious that the PRC is not bent on militarily conquering Taiwan. It need not unless Taiwan crosses its red lines. Approaching these red lines is usually done in collusion with the US. This points to a historical fact that the reason Taiwan is in a sovereignty limbo to this day is because the US used its naval might to back the KMT and Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) at the time of a militarily exhausted China. One ought to consider that Taiwan has been a part of China much, much longer (since 230 CE) than the geopolitical entity called the United States of America has existed based on its dispossession and genocide of the Original Peoples. Therefore, American proclamations about the PRC and Taiwan must be skeptically scrutinized since they are based in hypocrisy and desperation, with crucial facts confined to the memory hole, to anchor in place the US conception of a world order. Mearsheimer does not dwell on the relevancy of this reality when discussing the PRC and Taiwan.

Mearsheimer reveals his patriotic realism: “We [the US] are not only concerned about maintaining Taiwan as an independent state because it is a democracy and we have long had good relations with it, but we also think keeping Taiwan on our side of the ledger is very important for strategic reasons…”

Mearsheimer needs to define democracy and support his contention that the US is supportive of democracy, let alone whether the US is a legitimate democracy. Genuine democracy represents the will of the people.

Taiwan was for decades a KMT military dictatorship which resorted to mass murder to consolidate its power. Finally, in 1996, the electoral vote came to Taiwan. Yet, does a vote every few years mean a country is a democracy? Is that all it takes?

Does Mearsheimer really believe that the US supports democracy? Is supporting so-called color revolutions indicative of an adherence to democracy? Did the US backing of the Maidan coup to overthrow the elected president Viktor Yanukovych indicate a support of democracy? The examples are myriad.

Is blocking a presidential contender from receiving votes in certain states (from Ralph Nader to Donald Trump) indicative of a fidelity to democracy? Or when a government ignores the will of a majority to follow a policy rejected by the masses, such as the US government’s vindictive agenda against publisher Julian Assange? So what does Mearsheimer mean when he posits an American support for Taiwan predicated on it being a democracy?

Does the PRC not have a claim to being a democracy? Does China not pursue policies for the good of the masses of Chinese? In his compellingly argued book, Democracy: What the West Can Learn from China, Wei Ling Chua makes the case for China as a democracy based on its devotion to the well-being of all its citizens. Harvard University’s Ash Center found in its last survey in 2016 that 95.5% of those surveyed reported being either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with the Communist Party of China government.

Even if China attempted to take Taiwan back now, Mearsheimer opined, “I think Xi Jinping has lots of domestic problems that are more important to deal with at this juncture, and furthermore, I don’t think the Taiwanese [he meant Chinese] have the military capability to take Taiwan back at the this point in time.” (Read “How Does Technology Factor in for US Militarism Toward China?”)

Mearsheimer is opining through most of the interview. This is adduced by framing many opinions with “I think.” Even non-nuclear war simulations that predict a US victory point out that it would come at a staggering price. Would the US citizenry be willing to pay the price?

Mearsheimer is convinced that regardless of the cost of a military confrontation between China and the US that “… the United States is definitely committed to containing China and keeping Taiwan out of China’s hands, then the United States would axiomatically fight war with China over Taiwan.”

He predicates this commitment on the comments of, with all due respect, a brain addled president.

Napolitano asks, “Is China a threat to the United States of America?”

Mearsheimer sidesteps the “threat” and states “the Chinese are a serious competitor.”

“Furthermore, the Chinese are interested not only in taking back Taiwan, they are interested in dominating the South China Sea and the East China Sea; and the South China Sea is of immense importance to the United States and to the world economy. And the United States does not want China to take the South China Sea back or take control of it, or take control of the East China Sea. We’re opposed to that. More generally, we do not want China to be the dominant power in Asia.”

“Taking back,” says Mearsheimer. In so stating, Mearsheimer is acknowledging Taiwan was removed from China. It was removed by Japanese imperialism. And that removal was enforced after World War II by the US against its WWII ally, China.

And what does the professor mean by “dominate”? How is China dominating these waters? Is that not what the US attempts by sending war ships into the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, South China Sea, and the East China Sea? (Read “Who has Sovereignty in the South China Sea?”) Does China prevent innocent passage of shipping through these waters?
Does China prevent innocent passage of shipping through these waters? Noteworthy is a legal position that holds that military transit requires China’s approval.

Mearsheimer: “But China naturally wants to be the dominant power in Asia just like we want to be the dominant power in our backyard…”

Naturally, as if this is ineluctable. And again, this word dominate? The US dominates by having other countries adhere to its coercive demands, especially commercial demands, (read John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by for elaboration), by situating its preferred people in charge in targeted countries (e.g., splitting Korea and transplanting the dictator Syngman Rhee from the US to South Korea, supporting Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam before later abandoning him, and the installment of the unpopular Ayad Allawi as prime minister in Iraq).

The US is ensconced on ethnically cleansed Indigenous territory. It supported a corporate coup against the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and apologized for this in 1993, but still the US continues to occupy Hawai’i. There are also the cases of Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, Palau, the Chagos archipelago, the Marshall Islands, and others.

According to the reasoning proffered by Mearsheimer, the US was predetermined to pursue building an empire. And in his reasoning the US is unexceptional in this regard because China’s eventual imperialist path is also likewise predetermined.

Mearsheimer acknowledges that “China is ambitious for good reasons on their part, and the United States is committed to limiting China’s ambitions for good strategic reasons on its part.”

Usually to be ambitious is considered in a positive vein: learn all you can, develop, become independent, become a leader. However, in Mearsheimer’s wording one assumes ambition to be negative, as in dominating others and halting the ambitions of others, as the US wants to do to China. Limiting China’s ambitions — so much for win-win, as China is committed to. And why is limiting China good strategic reasoning by the US? Doesn’t the US trumpet so-called free markets?

Napolitano picks up on this and asks: “What are the reasons for limiting China’s ambitions if the ambitions are commercial in nature?”

Mearsheimer points to determinism,

And you know how the United States behaves. The United States is a highly aggressive state that runs around the world using its power quite liberally. Why do you think that if China had a powerful military that it wouldn’t do the same thing? The United States just doesn’t want any other power on the planet to be more powerful than it is. I think that any other country on the planet, if it had its druthers, would want to be the most powerful state in the system. And the reason is that the international system [Which system is Mearsheimer referring to: that overseen by the United Nations or the so-called rules based order? — KP] is a really dangerous place. It is in many ways a brutal jungle. All you have to do is look at what is happening to the Palestinians. If you were the Palestinians, wouldn’t you want your own state, and wouldn’t you want that your state to be really powerful, so that nobody, in effect, could mess around with you? I think the Chinese are driven by this mentality? [italics added]

Mearsheimer rejects that China’s reasons are just commercial. He posits instead a geopolitical determinism. Freedom for a country to choose its direction in the world apparently does not exist. Nation states are bound to follow a determined trajectory.

Mearsheimer assumes China will follow the US trajectory. He asks, “Why do you think that if China had a powerful military that it wouldn’t do the same thing?” [italics added]

Why did the Soviet Union dissolve? A commonly heard answer is that the military power that the Soviet Union once was was brought to its economic knees due to military overspending. Why is the US’s economic preeminence challenged by a serious competitor now? Does China have 700 to 900 foreign military bases (numbers vary according to source, but a lot)? This must cause a serious outpouring of money. Maybe that is why China wouldn’t pursue the same folly as the US? Moreover, China is steadfastly promoting peaceful win-win relations between and among countries. China’s economic success is based on these win-win relationships. By engaging in win-win relations, China wins and the other country wins. There is no need to dominate. China is able to receive the commodities, materials, and services that it desires (except when a competitor decides to limit “free trade”), and it continues to prosper as does its partner country.

Of course the Chinese don’t want to suffer another century of humiliation (but does that mean the Chinese want to oppress others as the West have been doing?) Besides, wasn’t Vietnam syndrome humiliating? Wasn’t the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan humiliating?

Relationships of domination and humiliation are not win-win. One side will be aggrieved in such a relationship and will seek another relationship, and more likely elsewhere with a trustworthy partner. It seems that China is aware of this dynamic.

Mearsheimer posits how the US should deal with China:

“I think the United States should go to great lengths to contain China.” Contain, meaning “to prevent China from dominating the South China Sea, to prevent China from taking Taiwan, and to prevent China from dominating the East China Sea,” and to make good relations with China’s neighbors in furtherance of this US objective; and avoid provoking a war with China.

Said the professor, “We should try to roll back Chinese military power; the United States should manage China-US relations to avoid war.” In other words, the US should dominate China, as is natural, according to the professor.

Given the multitude of wars carried out by the US abroad, it is surely self-evident that if a nation state wants to avoid wars and does not have a powerful ally, then a certain level of a defensive capability is a sine qua non. For the aggressive US, by far the highest spending military-industrial complex on the planet, to call out the strengthening of another country’s military, especially a country frequently excoriated and threatened by US government officials, must be viewed as blatant hypocrisy.

Hence, it is quite a conundrum Mearsheimer lays out: avoiding war by rolling back another country’s military power by virtue of it having greater military power. Supposedly, in this scenario, China will accede to the US curtailment (“rolling back”) of Chinese military might and not be provoked to war; it will give up its national aspiration to bring Taiwan fully back into the Chinese nation; it will allow itself to be humiliated once again by a foreign nation. Paradoxically, this scenario also calls on China to reject geopolitical determinism? It sounds a lot like Mearsheimer has constructed a pretzel of contradictions. How sensible, how probable is what the professor proffers?

Mearsheimer asserts that China seeks power that is self-serving – that is, power that is not shared as in a win-win scenario: “… We have a vested interest in not letting China shift the balance of power in its favor, and, therefore against us, in a major way.”

This raises many questions and requires elucidation. Who is the “we” here? One assumes Mearsheimer means the US. Is it in the “vested interest” of the masses in the US? It must be because to be vested otherwise would be undemocratic. While in the US millions sleep in their cars or under bridges each night, scrape through garbage receptacles for sustenance during the day, and beg for handouts, China has eliminated such extreme poverty. Shouldn’t that be a signal for the impoverished strata in other societies?

China is not the enemy. China is not perfect, and it doesn’t profess to be. It does not profess to be an indispensable nation. It does not proclaim to be a beacon on the hill. It does not list as a goal full spectrum dominance. Mearsheimer apparently thinks that the evolution of the capitalist US must also apply to socialist China. Nonetheless, it would seem more accurate to portray China, which in the earliest stage of socialism, as an alternative model to US capitalism, militarism, imperialism, and dominance.

Other nations state should seriously consider how socialism matched with their country’s characteristics might function for them.

• See also Kim Petersen, “Obstacles to the Peaceful Reintegration of Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China: Interview with author Wei Ling Chua.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

The professor answered, “There is no question that the Chinese want Taiwan back. They want to make Taiwan part of China…. There is also no question that the Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China. They want to be a sovereign state. These are two irreconcilable goals.”

First, it must be stated that much of what Mearsheimer says about geopolitical issues (particularly, with respect to the United States’ agenda in the world) comes across as arrived at by honest, factual, realistic appraisal.

It is axiomatic that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) would like the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan) fully back in the fold. As far as the PRC is concerned, Taiwan is de jure a part of China, and the United Nations and 181 countries concur that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. This includes the United States. Mearsheimer’s words elide this reality. His words also appear in contradiction since he admits that Taiwan is not sovereign. Taiwan is not a country. Mearsheimer’s wording aligns with the oleaginous US position toward the PRC and Taiwan.

In US diplomacy, words too often do not match facts or deeds. The US signed on to the One China policy. However, because of the increasing alarm that the economic, technological, military advancement of the PRC is eclipsing the US’s arrogant claim to full spectrum dominance, the US has precipitated, what looks on its face to be, an abject desperation to maintain its place in at the top of the world order, as it defines this order.

As for Mearsheimer’s evidence-free claim of there being “no question that the Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China.” That is disputable. Legacy media will point to the recent presidential victory of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Lai Ching-te to buttress this claim of Taiwan’s desire for sovereignty.

While Lai led with 40.05% of the vote, the opposition Guomindang (KMT) presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih received 33.49% of the votes, and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je received 26.45%. So roughly 60% of the electorate’s votes did not go to the DPP. Earlier Ko had proposed a failed KMT-TPP alliance, which suggests something other than a sovereignist agenda for 60% of Taiwanese voters.

Looking at the voting results might, therefore, lead one to refute the “no question” Taiwan wants to be separate from the PRC claim to be itself questionable.

Mearsheimer continued, “The interesting question, at this point in time, is whether or not the Chinese are going to try to conquer Taiwan by military force.”

To most of the world Taiwan is a part of One China. It is obvious that the PRC is not bent on militarily conquering Taiwan. It need not unless Taiwan crosses its red lines. Approaching these red lines is usually done in collusion with the US. This points to a historical fact that the reason Taiwan is in a sovereignty limbo to this day is because the US used its naval might to back the KMT and Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) at the time of a militarily exhausted China. One ought to consider that Taiwan has been a part of China much, much longer (since 230 CE) than the geopolitical entity called the United States of America has existed based on its dispossession and genocide of the Original Peoples. Therefore, American proclamations about the PRC and Taiwan must be skeptically scrutinized since they are based in hypocrisy and desperation, with crucial facts confined to the memory hole, to anchor in place the US conception of a world order. Mearsheimer does not dwell on the relevancy of this reality when discussing the PRC and Taiwan.

Mearsheimer reveals his patriotic realism: “We [the US] are not only concerned about maintaining Taiwan as an independent state because it is a democracy and we have long had good relations with it, but we also think keeping Taiwan on our side of the ledger is very important for strategic reasons…”

Mearsheimer needs to define democracy and support his contention that the US is supportive of democracy, let alone whether the US is a legitimate democracy. Genuine democracy represents the will of the people.

Taiwan was for decades a KMT military dictatorship which resorted to mass murder to consolidate its power. Finally, in 1996, the electoral vote came to Taiwan. Yet, does a vote every few years mean a country is a democracy? Is that all it takes?

Does Mearsheimer really believe that the US supports democracy? Is supporting so-called color revolutions indicative of an adherence to democracy? Did the US backing of the Maidan coup to overthrow the elected president Viktor Yanukovych indicate a support of democracy? The examples are myriad.

Is blocking a presidential contender from receiving votes in certain states (from Ralph Nader to Donald Trump) indicative of a fidelity to democracy? Or when a government ignores the will of a majority to follow a policy rejected by the masses, such as the US government’s vindictive agenda against publisher Julian Assange? So what does Mearsheimer mean when he posits an American support for Taiwan predicated on it being a democracy?

Does the PRC not have a claim to being a democracy? Does China not pursue policies for the good of the masses of Chinese? In his compellingly argued book, Democracy: What the West Can Learn from China, Wei Ling Chua makes the case for China as a democracy based on its devotion to the well-being of all its citizens. Harvard University’s Ash Center found in its last survey in 2016 that 95.5% of those surveyed reported being either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with the Communist Party of China government.

Even if China attempted to take Taiwan back now, Mearsheimer opined, “I think Xi Jinping has lots of domestic problems that are more important to deal with at this juncture, and furthermore, I don’t think the Taiwanese [he meant Chinese] have the military capability to take Taiwan back at the this point in time.” (Read “How Does Technology Factor in for US Militarism Toward China?”)

Mearsheimer is opining through most of the interview. This is adduced by framing many opinions with “I think.” Even non-nuclear war simulations that predict a US victory point out that it would come at a staggering price. Would the US citizenry be willing to pay the price?

Mearsheimer is convinced that regardless of the cost of a military confrontation between China and the US that “… the United States is definitely committed to containing China and keeping Taiwan out of China’s hands, then the United States would axiomatically fight war with China over Taiwan.”

He predicates this commitment on the comments of, with all due respect, a brain addled president.

Napolitano asks, “Is China a threat to the United States of America?”

Mearsheimer sidesteps the “threat” and states “the Chinese are a serious competitor.”

“Furthermore, the Chinese are interested not only in taking back Taiwan, they are interested in dominating the South China Sea and the East China Sea; and the South China Sea is of immense importance to the United States and to the world economy. And the United States does not want China to take the South China Sea back or take control of it, or take control of the East China Sea. We’re opposed to that. More generally, we do not want China to be the dominant power in Asia.”

“Taking back,” says Mearsheimer. In so stating, Mearsheimer is acknowledging Taiwan was removed from China. It was removed by Japanese imperialism. And that removal was enforced after World War II by the US against its WWII ally, China.

And what does the professor mean by “dominate”? How is China dominating these waters? Is that not what the US attempts by sending war ships into the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, South China Sea, and the East China Sea? (Read “Who has Sovereignty in the South China Sea?”) Does China prevent innocent passage of shipping through these waters?
Does China prevent innocent passage of shipping through these waters? Noteworthy is a legal position that holds that military transit requires China’s approval.

Mearsheimer: “But China naturally wants to be the dominant power in Asia just like we want to be the dominant power in our backyard…”

Naturally, as if this is ineluctable. And again, this word dominate? The US dominates by having other countries adhere to its coercive demands, especially commercial demands, (read John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by for elaboration), by situating its preferred people in charge in targeted countries (e.g., splitting Korea and transplanting the dictator Syngman Rhee from the US to South Korea, supporting Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam before later abandoning him, and the installment of the unpopular Ayad Allawi as prime minister in Iraq).

The US is ensconced on ethnically cleansed Indigenous territory. It supported a corporate coup against the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and apologized for this in 1993, but still the US continues to occupy Hawai’i. There are also the cases of Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, Palau, the Chagos archipelago, the Marshall Islands, and others.

According to the reasoning proffered by Mearsheimer, the US was predetermined to pursue building an empire. And in his reasoning the US is unexceptional in this regard because China’s eventual imperialist path is also likewise predetermined.

Mearsheimer acknowledges that “China is ambitious for good reasons on their part, and the United States is committed to limiting China’s ambitions for good strategic reasons on its part.”

Usually to be ambitious is considered in a positive vein: learn all you can, develop, become independent, become a leader. However, in Mearsheimer’s wording one assumes ambition to be negative, as in dominating others and halting the ambitions of others, as the US wants to do to China. Limiting China’s ambitions — so much for win-win, as China is committed to. And why is limiting China good strategic reasoning by the US? Doesn’t the US trumpet so-called free markets?

Napolitano picks up on this and asks: “What are the reasons for limiting China’s ambitions if the ambitions are commercial in nature?”

Mearsheimer points to determinism,

And you know how the United States behaves. The United States is a highly aggressive state that runs around the world using its power quite liberally. Why do you think that if China had a powerful military that it wouldn’t do the same thing? The United States just doesn’t want any other power on the planet to be more powerful than it is. I think that any other country on the planet, if it had its druthers, would want to be the most powerful state in the system. And the reason is that the international system [Which system is Mearsheimer referring to: that overseen by the United Nations or the so-called rules based order? — KP] is a really dangerous place. It is in many ways a brutal jungle. All you have to do is look at what is happening to the Palestinians. If you were the Palestinians, wouldn’t you want your own state, and wouldn’t you want that your state to be really powerful, so that nobody, in effect, could mess around with you? I think the Chinese are driven by this mentality? [italics added]

Mearsheimer rejects that China’s reasons are just commercial. He posits instead a geopolitical determinism. Freedom for a country to choose its direction in the world apparently does not exist. Nation states are bound to follow a determined trajectory.

Mearsheimer assumes China will follow the US trajectory. He asks, “Why do you think that if China had a powerful military that it wouldn’t do the same thing?” [italics added]

Why did the Soviet Union dissolve? A commonly heard answer is that the military power that the Soviet Union once was was brought to its economic knees due to military overspending. Why is the US’s economic preeminence challenged by a serious competitor now? Does China have 700 to 900 foreign military bases (numbers vary according to source, but a lot)? This must cause a serious outpouring of money. Maybe that is why China wouldn’t pursue the same folly as the US? Moreover, China is steadfastly promoting peaceful win-win relations between and among countries. China’s economic success is based on these win-win relationships. By engaging in win-win relations, China wins and the other country wins. There is no need to dominate. China is able to receive the commodities, materials, and services that it desires (except when a competitor decides to limit “free trade”), and it continues to prosper as does its partner country.

Of course the Chinese don’t want to suffer another century of humiliation (but does that mean the Chinese want to oppress others as the West have been doing?) Besides, wasn’t Vietnam syndrome humiliating? Wasn’t the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan humiliating?

Relationships of domination and humiliation are not win-win. One side will be aggrieved in such a relationship and will seek another relationship, and more likely elsewhere with a trustworthy partner. It seems that China is aware of this dynamic.

Mearsheimer posits how the US should deal with China:

“I think the United States should go to great lengths to contain China.” Contain, meaning “to prevent China from dominating the South China Sea, to prevent China from taking Taiwan, and to prevent China from dominating the East China Sea,” and to make good relations with China’s neighbors in furtherance of this US objective; and avoid provoking a war with China.

Said the professor, “We should try to roll back Chinese military power; the United States should manage China-US relations to avoid war.” In other words, the US should dominate China, as is natural, according to the professor.

Given the multitude of wars carried out by the US abroad, it is surely self-evident that if a nation state wants to avoid wars and does not have a powerful ally, then a certain level of a defensive capability is a sine qua non. For the aggressive US, by far the highest spending military-industrial complex on the planet, to call out the strengthening of another country’s military, especially a country frequently excoriated and threatened by US government officials, must be viewed as blatant hypocrisy.

Hence, it is quite a conundrum Mearsheimer lays out: avoiding war by rolling back another country’s military power by virtue of it having greater military power. Supposedly, in this scenario, China will accede to the US curtailment (“rolling back”) of Chinese military might and not be provoked to war; it will give up its national aspiration to bring Taiwan fully back into the Chinese nation; it will allow itself to be humiliated once again by a foreign nation. Paradoxically, this scenario also calls on China to reject geopolitical determinism? It sounds a lot like Mearsheimer has constructed a pretzel of contradictions. How sensible, how probable is what the professor proffers?

Mearsheimer asserts that China seeks power that is self-serving – that is, power that is not shared as in a win-win scenario: “… We have a vested interest in not letting China shift the balance of power in its favor, and, therefore against us, in a major way.”

This raises many questions and requires elucidation. Who is the “we” here? One assumes Mearsheimer means the US. Is it in the “vested interest” of the masses in the US? It must be because to be vested otherwise would be undemocratic. While in the US millions sleep in their cars or under bridges each night, scrape through garbage receptacles for sustenance during the day, and beg for handouts, China has eliminated such extreme poverty. Shouldn’t that be a signal for the impoverished strata in other societies?

China is not the enemy. China is not perfect, and it doesn’t profess to be. It does not profess to be an indispensable nation. It does not proclaim to be a beacon on the hill. It does not list as a goal full spectrum dominance. Mearsheimer apparently thinks that the evolution of the capitalist US must also apply to socialist China. Nonetheless, it would seem more accurate to portray China, which in the earliest stage of socialism, as an alternative model to US capitalism, militarism, imperialism, and dominance.

Other nations state should seriously consider how socialism matched with their country’s characteristics might function for them.

• See also Kim Petersen, “Obstacles to the Peaceful Reintegration of Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China: Interview with author Wei Ling Chua.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

When the Trump administration launched the China Initiative to prosecute spies, the Department of Justice racially profiled Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of Chinese researchers who dropped their affiliation with U.S. institutions jumped 23 percent. The Biden administration has ended the initiative, but the Department of Justice and the congressional anti-China committee are still targeting political leaders in the Chinese community.

As Biden continues the crackdowns of his predecessor, his administration is also escalating in the Asia-Pacific region. From expanding military bases in the Philippines – including one potential base in the works intended to join contingencies in Taiwan – to building a fleet of AI drones to target China, militarists are creating conditions for a hot war in the Pacific. As the U.S. prepares for war, Forbes published an article on September 25 about an aircraft carrier “kill chain” and its potential use in a war with China. In February, CNN journalists accompanied a U.S. Navy jet approaching Chinese airspace. As a Chinese pilot warned the U.S. to keep a safe distance, an American soldier remarked: “It’s another Friday afternoon in the South China Sea.”

Not only are we normalizing U.S. aggression. We’re also relying on the military-industrial complex as an unbiased source. Pro-war propaganda is derailing China-U.S. ties, increasing anti-Asian hate, and hiding the realities of public opinion across the Pacific.

After launching the AUKUS military pact between Britain and Australia in 2021, as well as stiff export controls designed to limit China’s economy last year, the U.S. began 2023 with what appeared to be an olive branch. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to visit China in February. Then came the “spy balloon.”

A Chinese balloon was blown off course and eventually shot down by the U.S. military. The Wall Street Journal and NBC uncritically printed and broadcasted statements from US Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder about the balloon’s surveillance capabilities. On February 8, citing three unnamed officials, the New York Times said, “American intelligence agencies have assessed that China’s spy balloon program is part of global surveillance.” The same story mentions the U.S. State Department’s briefings to foreign officials that were “designed to show that the balloons are equipped for intelligence gathering and that the Chinese military has been carrying out this collection for years, targeting, among other sites, the territories of Japan, Taiwan, India, and the Philippines.”

On April 3, the BBC and CNN published conflicting stories on the balloon that cited anonymous officials but contained inconsistencies about its ability to take pictures. It wasn’t until June 29 that Ryder admitted no data had been transmitted. In September, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told CBS the balloon wasn’t even spying. This matched China’s statements about the balloon, as well as that of American meteorologists. But the damage was done. Blinken had postponed his trip to China. He eventually went in June, after a trip to Papua New Guinea, where its student protesters rejected his plans to militarize their country under a security pact.

On May 26, Blinken made a speech, referring to China as a “long-term challenge.” Politico went further, publishing a piece on May 26, called “Blinken calls China ‘most serious long-term’ threat to world order” with a same-day USA Today article also taking the liberty of using challenge and threat interchangeably.

A Princeton University study found Americans who perceive China as a threat were more likely to stereotype Chinese people as untrustworthy and immoral. Intelligence leaks about a China threat combined with the age-old Yellow Peril syndrome have allowed for incessant Sinophobia to dominate our politics.

Misinformation, the other pandemic

In May 2020, Trump told a scared country with 1 million recorded COVID-19 cases and almost 100,000 dead that the pandemic was China’s fault. Again, our leaders cited undisclosed intelligence. For its part, CNN showed images of wet markets after the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Walter Russell Mead called “China Is The Real Sick Man of Asia.” A year later, Politico eventually acknowledged Trump cherry-picked intelligence to support his claims but the Biden administration ended up also seeking to investigate the lab leak theory. And the media went along with it.

For the Wall Street Journal, pro-Iraq War propagandist Michael Gordon co-authored an article claiming that “three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.” An anonymous source said, “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality.” But the source admits it’s not known why researchers were sick.

The article relies on the conservative Hudson Institute’s Senior Fellow David Asher’s testimony and the fact China has not shared the medical records of citizens without potential COVID-19 symptoms. It is even admitted that several other unnamed U.S. officials find the Trump-era intelligence to be exactly what it is – circumstantial.

A year earlier, during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries moderated by CNN, Dana Bash asked Bernie Sanders: “What consequences should China face for its role in its global crisis?” She asked the question referencing how Wuhan’s authorities silenced Dr. Wenliang but failed to mention China’s People’s Supreme Court condemned the city’s police for doing so. She also didn’t acknowledge how Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Shi Zhengli revealed in July 2020 that all of the staff and students in her lab tested negative for COVID-19. Shi even shared her research with American scientists. Georgetown University COVID-19 origin specialist Daniel Lucey welcomed Shi’s transparency: “There are a lot of new facts I wasn’t aware of. It’s very exciting to hear this directly from her.”

But from the Page Act of 1875, which stereotyped Chinese as disease carriers, to job discrimination during the pandemic, it is Asian Americans who ultimately pay the price for the media’s irresponsibility and participation in medical racism. They are already among the casualties of the new cold war. But that war not only threatens residents of the U.S. but the entire planet too.

Profit, not principle

This summer, the U.S. armed Taiwan under the Foreign Military Transfer program, reserved for sovereign states only. This violates the one-China policy which holds that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is one China. Biden is also trying to include Taiwan weapons funding in a supplemental request to Congress. Weapons sales to Taiwan go back to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, as well as Reagan administration’s assurances that the U.S. will keep sending weapons but not play any mediation role between Taipei and Beijing. In 1996, a military standoff between the U.S. and China erupted in the Taiwan Strait, followed by an increasing flow of lethal weaponry up to the present.

The New York Times published a story on September 18, mentioning Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which it says was “a show of support for the island.” Never mind that the majority of Taiwan residents surveyed by the Brookings Institute felt her visit was detrimental to their security. The media also often ignores voices from Taiwan who don’t want war, favor reunification, or reject attempts to delete Chinese history in their textbooks.

Still, Fox News continues to give a platform to lawmakers like Representative Young Kim who wrote a piece on September 20 advocating for more military patrols in the South China Sea. On October 17, The Washington Post published a story about the Pentagon releasing footage of Chinese aircraft intercepting U.S. warplanes over the last two years. The story does not share the context of U.S. expansionism or how multiple secretaries of defense have threatened Beijing over its disputed maritime borders. Microsoft is even getting in on the action, with articles from CNN and Reuters last month uncritically sharing the software company’s claims that China is using AI to interfere in our elections, despite no evidence shared with the voting public.

It demonstrates how war profiteers are edging us closer to a conflict. From sending the Patriot weapons system to Taiwan to practicing attacks with F-22 Raptors in the occupied Northern Marianas Islands, Lockheed Martin is raking in lucrative contracts while residents of the region fear an outbreak of war. RTX supplies Israel’s Iron Dome and is now designing engineering systems for gunboats in the Pacific. When arms dealers make money, victims of imperialism die. With strong links to the military, it’s hard to imagine that Microsoft, News Corp, and Warner Bros. Discovery would care as long as their stocks go up too. Intelligence spooks and media moguls don’t know what’s best for people or the planet. And it’s time for a balanced and nuanced understanding of China. That begins with disarming the discourse and keeping the Pacific peaceful.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Cale Holmes and Lawson Adams.

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The Philippines is regarded as a key component in the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. But compared to Tokyo and Canberra, which take on more aggressive roles, Manila, in the heart of Washington, is merely a stick used to muddy the waters of the South China Sea. In other words, the US aims to use the Philippines to continue escalating the China-Philippines dispute in the South China Sea and disrupt the friendly atmosphere of consultation between China and Southeast Asian countries on the South China Sea issue.

The Philippines on Friday condemned China, stating that a Chinese coast guard ship on Wednesday came within a meter of colliding with a Philippine patrol ship near Ren’ai Reef. It accused China of conducting “the closest dangerous maneuver.”

Beijing and Manila have already had several rounds of clashes in the South China Sea in recent months. This time, the Philippines’ actions have once again confirmed a concerning trend: It has joined forces with the US to stir up new troubles in the South China Sea, becoming a destabilizing force in the Asia-Pacific region.

Under the general context of the Joe Biden administration’s push for military and political cooperation with the Philippines based on the US Indo-Pacific Strategy, Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr abandoned his predecessor’s rather friendly policy toward China after he came to power. Instead, he focused more on using the enchantment of ties with the US to promote the development of his country’s military capabilities, hoping to consolidate domestic support. In addition, by constantly provoking troubles with China in the South China Sea, Manila wants to test how strong the US-Philippines alliance is.

As tensions between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea grow, Washington and Manila kicked off Maritime Training Activity Sama Sama 2023 off the Philippine coast on Monday. The main character in these military drills that will run through October 13, in fact, is still the US, which is purely exploiting the Philippines’ close geographic location to China and its South China Sea disputes with China. Under the pretext of “addressing a spectrum of security threats and enhancing interoperability,” Washington is targeting  China through the Sama Sama drills.

Seeking to form more closed, confrontational minilateral mechanisms in the region similar to the Quad and AUKUS, Washington is glad to see Manila play a certain role in the vision of its Indo-Pacific Strategy. However, once the Philippines decides to tie itself up to the US’ chariot, it will certainly go against the idea of ASEAN as a whole – These countries don’t want the region to become a battleground for great power competitions, nor do they want to become proxies for great powers.

During the Rodrigo Duterte administration, the pragmatic and win-win cooperation between China and the Philippines has contributed much to the development of China, and the Philippines especially. If the Marcos Jr administration continues to drift off course in the South China Sea, turning the region into a sea of instability and driving China-Philippines relations into the vortex of conflicts, a disaster for the Philippines is inevitable, which will bring new uncertainties to bilateral ties and regional stability.

Chinese military expert Song Zhongping told the Global Times that if the Philippines, at the instigation of the US, turns into a bridgehead against China, it could become a battleground if the conflict escalates and this will plunge the country into the abyss of irretrievable losses. Therefore, the Marcos Jr administration needs to realize that the Philippines is only a pawn of the US and that Washington cannot be trusted.

It is not China that has pushed the Philippines toward the US, but the US that has forced ASEAN countries, particularly those that have disputes with China, to pick a side. China has never and will never pressure any ASEAN country, including the Philippines, to make a choice between siding with China or the US. As a peace-loving country, it always pursues to set aside the disputes in the South China Sea. At the same time, the direct communications channel between China and the Philippines over the South China Sea issue is still open, while Beijing has shown willingness to proactively engage in dialogues with Manila.

China and ASEAN countries should carry on with consultations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, to strengthen bilateral cooperation and turn the South China Sea into a sea of peace, stability and win-win cooperation, instead of becoming a region of conflict and trouble under the constant involvement of extraterritorial countries.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Global Times.

Western media never stop warning us of China: it menaces Taiwan, threatens its neighbors and shipping lanes in the South China Sea, and sticks military bases on Cuba. China, we are told, spies on us by the most devious means, through TikTok, Huawei 5G, and weather balloons. And China, say our media, ensnares Africa with debt traps. Meanwhile, the US government and its media-echo decry China’s abuses of its own people. China, the US says, has committed “cultural” and literal genocide against Uyghur muslims in Xinjiang. As for the Covid-19 pandemic, the West with whiplash-inducing self-contradiction accuses China of mishandling the crisis by imposing both draconian lockdowns and lockdowns that were too lax, as well as premature reopenings and reopenings that were too-long delayed.

Meanwhile, the liberal and left-liberal West shakes its ideological finger at China, declaring it to practice an idiosyncratic communism-capitalism that sometimes features the worst of both worlds.

In the western imagination, China’s citizens are feared for their abject discipline and uncanny competence. Yet the West pities them too, thinking they are ruled by communist overlords in a dictatorship devoid of individual liberties.

In short, to the western world, China is an iconic picture of tyranny, malevolence, and exploitation. Still, China is not unique in its status as a US bogeyman. Whenever the West targets a country militarily or economically, the press always turns the country into a cartoon, invariably the same cartoon: authoritarian, autocratic, led by an evil/mad dictator; e.g., Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, etc.

Which is why we should be grateful for the picture of China drawn in this elegantly concise and easily read book, The East Is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century, by Carlos Martinez (Praxis Press, 2023, 210 pp.). Of its 210 pages, nearly 60 are taken up with source citations, a 5-page index, reading recommendations, and photographs.

Despite its brevity, the book expertly refutes the West’s blizzard of charges against China. It also sketches China’s 20th century history, its economics and political system, and the ideology that accompanied the Chinese people’s astonishing advance. Martinez analyzes and answers two questions preoccupying many on the political left: Is China socialist? Is it imperialist? (Martinez argues Yes, and No, respectively.)

Life in China Today

First, some bullet points on life in China today, with facts gleaned from the book. (Citations are to the print edition.)

• Life expectancy in China is now 78.2 years and literacy is 97%. For comparison, in the US the figures are 76.4 and 79, respectively. (95)

• Infant mortality is 5.4/1000 in 2020, just under the US figure of 5.69/1000. (95)

• The majority of students in higher education are women, while before the 1949 revolution the vast majority of women received no education at all. (31)

• Since 2000 China has revived universal health insurance, a minimum 9-year free compulsory education, pensions, subsidized housing, and other income support. (67-68)

• 98% of poor villages have optical fiber communications and 4G technology. (99)

• Extreme or “absolute” poverty has been eliminated. (31) This meant lifting over 800 million people (now 10% of humanity) out of poverty in the last 40 years. ¹ (89) However, to say that China has eliminated “absolute poverty” but not “poverty” is technically true but vastly understates the accomplishment. China’s poverty elimination program considers that each and every citizen must have adequate food and clothing, access to medical services, safe housing with drinking water and electricity, and at least nine years of free education. To do this, “Three million carefully selected cadres were dispatched to poor villages, forming 255,000 teams that reside there. Living in humble conditions for generally one to three years at a time, the teams worked alongside poor peasants, local officials, and volunteers, until each household was lifted out of poverty.” ² (97)

• China’s response to public health emergencies was very recently tested. After Covid-19 emerged in Wuhan, China identified and suppressed the virus, sequenced and published the genome, and reopened after a few months. This rapid response was unprecedented, as noted by the World Health Organization and many other authoritative bodies. China literally saved millions of lives through its public health administrative virtuosity, while the West, on the other hand, sacrificed millions. (At the time, this reviewer wrote about China’s initial response to COVID-19, here.) (113)

• China’s per capita incarceration rate is less than 20% that of the US. (122)

• 93% of China’s population are satisfied with their central government, according to a study by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. (54)

To see how impressive this all is, consider that by global standards China is anything but a rich country. According to the World Bank, in 2022 China’s nominal GDP per capita was about one-sixth of that of the US, but its purchase-price-parity GDP per capita is now comparable to that of the US. ³ This is consistent with China’s status as a peripheral or semi-peripheral country in the global system, ⁴ sending most of the surplus value it produces to the global north. ⁵ But it also tells us that China has created a domestic market that provides a much higher national standard of living than that in many other peripheral and semi-peripheral countries.

History

Martinez’s summary of China’s recent history explains that the current quality of life and popular sovereignty in China are rooted in the first half of the 20th century.

In 1949, year of the revolution, China was among the poorest countries in the world. The US under President Truman then imposed a near total blockade on China. (94) This crushing, existential impediment to China’s development, eventually forced it into the 1979-1980 US-China agreements with the US under President Nixon. China then devised the economic strategy that it now calls “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

But China’s progress did not begin with the US-China deal and the economic changes of the late 1970s-80s known as “Reform and Opening Up.” From the revolution in 1949 until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, life expectancy in China rose 31 years, the fastest ever recorded in a major country. In the same period, literacy went from 20% to 93%. (17) China’s unprecedented triumph over poverty simply continued the practice that began before the 1949 revolution, in the Communist-liberated zones, beginning with the Jianxi-Fujian Soviet in 1931. (90) After the 1949 revolution, life expectancy rose from 36 to 67 in the three decades that followed, well-exceeding the global increase. (91-92) Even the World Bank praised China’s successful development over the four decades before 1983. (90)

Development Strategy

China’s economic changes of the later 20th century were not just a development strategy, but a strategy of coping with the existential threat presented by the West. China intended to integrate itself into the global production chain so thoroughly that it would make the cost of Western aggression against it too high. (36-37, 47)

China’s economic system now depends on its popular government’s control of the commanding heights of the economy, including banking and all the leading industries, avoiding the scourge of privatization that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the devastation of its people in the 1990s. In China, even land ownership has not been privatized in the western sense.

Notice that this development strategy abjured the development strategy of the Western bloc, which depends, in the first instance, on centuries of colonialism, imperialism, plunder, and in the second, on the continuing imposition on the Global South of dependent underdevelopment, unequal exchange, violence, coups, sanctions and other malign practices required to enforce the unequal international order.

Global Leadership in Tech, Science, Climate Mitigation

China’s success is not just in its internal development, but in its global leadership. When the US trumpets its own “global leadership,” it looks nothing like what most of us would like the phrase to mean. China, on the other hand, really does lead, not only in world poverty reduction but in technology, scientific research, and climate mitigation efforts.

Some more bullet points, with facts gleaned from the book.

• China leads the world in renewable energy, digital networking, quantum computing, space exploration and nanotechnology. (xv)

• China leads the world in scientific research publication and patent grants. (xv)

• In 2007 over 80% of China’s electricity came from coal. By 2022, this dropped to 56%, about the same as Australia, a country with a per capita GDP (nominal) about five times China’s. (139)

• In 2021, China accounted for 46% of the world’s new solar and wind power capacity. (140)

• International energy analyst Tim Buckley observed that China is the world leader in “wind and solar installation, in wind and solar manufacturing, in electric vehicle production, in batteries, in hydro, in nuclear, in ground heat pumps, in grid transmission and distribution, and in green hydrogen… they literally lead the world in every zero-emissions technology today.” (140)

• China is reforesting, planting forests the size of Ireland in a single year, and doubling forest coverage from 12% in 1980 to 23% in 2020, while the global trend is in the opposite direction. (144-145)

• China also is leading in green foreign direct investment through the Belt and Road Initiative, in Pakistan, Argentina, Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Central African Republic. (149-150)

Imperialism? Debt Traps? ‘Belt and Road’ Bad?

The book offers a detailed analysis of the charge that China is imperialist. For example, as theorized by Lenin, one central imperial criterion is the export of capital. Martinez writes that in the past, “China’s ‘export of capital’ was limited largely to foreign aid projects in Africa, most famously the Tazara Railway linking Tanzania and Zambia, which aside from enabling regional development, broke Zambia’s dependency on apartheid-ruled territories (Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe], South Africa, Mozambique).”

Nor could China be considered imperialist in the 1980s and 1990s: “[R]ather, it was the recipient of enormous volumes of foreign capital, from Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US and Europe… China opened itself up to exploitation by the imperialist powers so as to develop technological capacity and insert itself into global value chains.” (36-37)

The charge of imperialism overlaps the charge that China ensnares African states in “debt traps.” This is ironic, given that the charge is made by Africa’s historical trapper-in-chief, the West. ⁶

Martinez dispenses with this claim too. He describes the economic relations between Africa and China and how little they resemble imperialist relations.

[T]he structure of the Chinese economy is such that it doesn’t impel the domination of foreign markets, territories, resources and labor in the same way as free market capitalism does. The major banks—which obviously wield a decisive influence over how capital is deployed—are majority-owned by the state, responsible primarily not to shareholders but to the Chinese people,” as are “the key industries,” which are “subjected to heavy regulation by a state that does not have private profit maximization as its primary objective. (38)

Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis notes, “the Chinese are non-interventionist in a way that Westerners have never managed to fathom… they went to Addis Ababa and said to the government, ‘we can see you have some problems with your infrastructure, we would like to build some new airports, upgrade your railway system, create a telephone system, and rebuild your roads.’” (42)

China is now Africa’s largest trading partner: $254 billion in 2021. Compare US-Africa trade, at $64 billion. In addition to trade, China “provides vast low-cost loans for infrastructure projects, with Chinese banks now accounting for around a fifth of all lending to Africa.” Due in part to Chinese finance and expertise, ‘Ethiopia in 2015 celebrated the opening of the first metro train system in sub-Saharan Africa, along with Africa’s first fully electrified cross-border railway line, the Ethiopian-Djibouti electric railway. The African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa was funded by the Chinese government as a gift to the AU.’” China is also building Zimbabwe’s parliament building gratis, and funding construction of Africa’s CDC, just opened in January 2023. (40)

China makes loans differently too. At the time of the book’s writing, the average interest rate on private sector loans was about 5%, but Chinese public and private lenders charged half that. Austerity is never a condition of a Chinese loan, unlike Western loans that are made under IMF and World Bank strictures. (41)

China’s policy on foreign investment and loans is not an accident. China follows explicit rules for African investment, as outlined by President Xi in 2018: “No interference in African countries’ internal affairs; no imposition of our will on African countries; no attachment of political strings to assistance to Africa; and no seeking of selfish political gains in investment and financing cooperation with Africa.” (43-44)

China initiated its famous “Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),” a global infrastructure development strategy, ten years ago. As of last year, 150 countries (the United Nations General Assembly has 193) have signed up with BRI. “Politically, the project fits into China’s longstanding approach of using economic integration to increase the cost (and thereby reduce the likelihood) of confrontation.” (47) “Nearly every country in the Global South has signed up” with BRI, “including 43 out of 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.” (48)

Martinez quips, “Surely not all the turkeys are voting for Christmas?” (48)

Xinjiang

Perhaps the most vicious tale the West tells about China concerns Xinjiang and its Uyghur population. The US government and its media echo, joined by other western governments, accuse China of physical, cultural and religious genocide of Uyghurs, imprisoning a million of them, and subjecting them to forced labor.

Martinez debunks the Xinjiang myth point by point. But for this review, lets skip the details of China’s policy and practices in Xinjiang (largely a social work approach to terrorism). Let’s also forget the singular and bizarre source of the Xinjiang tales, one Adrian Zenz, exposed by a number of articles from The Grayzone. (120-122) Even without all that, the fraud is revealed by circumstantial evidence alone, as these bullet points show.

• Between 2010 and 2018 the Uyghur population has increased by 25%, from 10.2 million to 12.7 million; in the same period the majority Han Chinese population increased by only 2%. (117)

• China’s one-child policy implemented in 1978 and ending in 2015 exempted China’s dozens of ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs. (117)

• Life expectancy in the region has increased from 30 years in 1949 to 75 years today. (117)

• No refugee crisis exists or has been reported along the border with Pakistan, Kazakhstan or elsewhere. Indeed, Time magazine reported in 2021 the US had not admitted a single Uyghur refugee in the previous 12 months. (117)

• The total number of deaths caused by Covid-19 in Xinjiang is three. (118)

• All the schools in Xinjiang teach in both Standard Chinese and one minority language, most often Uyghur. (118)

• Chinese banknotes have five languages: Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian, and Zhuang. (118-9)

• There are over 25,000 mosques in Xinjiang, three times the number there were in 1980 and one of the highest rates per capita in the world. (119)

• The Xinjiang Islamic Institute is headquartered in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi. Thousands of students attend Islamic schools and the religion is practiced freely. (119)

• “During the 50th session of the Human Rights Council in 2022, members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation overwhelmingly co-sponsored the statement supporting China’s position (by 37 to 1).” Elsewhere in the Global South results were similar: Africa (33 to 2); Asia (20 to 2). (119)

In short, the Xinjiang story perpetrated by the West exemplifies the “big lie,” as theorized by an astute Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf:

[I]n the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.

Speaking of Hitler, an iconic offense in modern thought and discourse is the factual denial of the Nazi Holocaust. We might register the same disgust for the factual denial of any historically established mass genocidal event (e.g., in Guatemala). Is there any reason not to treat the wilful fabrication of a non-existent genocide with the same revulsion?

The South China Sea

The West accuses China of trying to militarize the South China Sea, including through island-building.

Martinez cites China scholar Jude Woodward: “Woodward observed that China’s island-building was carried out largely in response to the actions taken by other states in the region: ‘In its actions on these disputed islands, China can with justice argue that it has done no more than others… It [is] rarely mentioned that Taiwan has long had an airstrip on Taiping, Malaysia on Swallow Reef, Vietnam on Spratly Island and the Phillipines on Thitu.’” (50)

Moreover, China’s presence in the South China Sea is for economic and military securtity. It is China’s major shipping route, “as central to Asia as the Mediterranean is to Europe,” writes Robert Kaplan. (50) A blockade by the US or other hostile powers would present an existential threat. (50) This is not an imaginary threat, given US naval provocations and exercises in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, and US military and diplomatic relations with China’s separately-governed province of Taiwan. Indeed, it is the US which has sought to militarize and control the region.

Conclusion: The US Menace

The book’s last chapter urges us to work to oppose the West’s new Cold War on China. This war is multifaceted, including the 2012 US “pivot to Asia,” the banning of TikTok and WeChat, the kidnapping of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, the long-standing US encirclement of China and Russia with perhaps half of its 800 to 1100 overseas military bases, and US military aggression in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.  (167)

US policy is explicit: “Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival…that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union… Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor.” (US Defense Planning Guidance for 1994-1999)  (169)

Again citing China expert Jude Woodward, author of The US vs China: Asia’s new Cold War? (Manchester University Press, 2017), Martinez observes that current US policy toward China shows “a chilling resemblance” to US-USSR relations at the height of the Cold War, when the US sought to isolate the USSR economically, politically, and militarily. (170) Quoting Woodward, “The USSR was variously surrounded by a tightening iron noose of US military alliances, forward bases, border interventions, cruise missiles and naval exercises. Economically it was shut out of international trade organizations, subjected to bans and boycotts and excluded from collaboration on scientific and technological developments. It was diplomatically isolated, excluded from the G7 group of major economies and awarded an international pariah status. It was designated as uniquely undemocratic. Any opponents of this ‘Cold War’ and accompanying nuclear arms race were stigmatized as disloyal apologists, closet ‘reds’ or spies and subjected to McCarthyite witch-hunts.” (170)

“Propaganda wars can also be war propaganda,” writes Martinez. (110) And so it is with western demonization of China.

For those of us overwhelmed and frightened by the West’s prolific fictions about China and who wish to share a more accurate picture of the country with friends, families and fellow activists, in the hope of stopping the war before it starts, we might give them this book.

END NOTES

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Roger Stoll.

This week the Five Eyes alliance — an intelligence alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States — announced its investigation into a China-backed threat targeting US infrastructure.

Using stealth techniques, the attacker — referred to as “Volt Typhoon” — exploited existing resources in compromised networks in a technique called “living off the land”.

Microsoft made a concurrent announcement, stating the attackers’ targeting of Guam was telling of China’s plans to potentially disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the US and Asia region in the future.

• READ MORE: Deterring China isn’t all about submarines. Australia’s ‘cyber offence’ might be its most potent weapon

This comes hot on the heels of news in April of a North Korean supply chain attack on Asia-Pacific telecommunications provider 3CX. In this case, hackers gained access to an employee’s computer using a compromised desktop app for Windows and a compromised signed software installation package.

The Volt Typhoon announcement has led to a rare admission by the US National Security Agency that Australia and other Five Eyes partners are engaged in a targeted search and detection scheme to uncover China’s clandestine cyber operations.

Such public admissions from the Five Eyes alliance are few and far between. Behind the curtain, however, this network is persistently engaged in trying to take down foreign adversaries. And it’s no easy feat.

Let’s take a look at the events leading up to Volt Typhoon — and more broadly at how this secretive transnational alliance operates.

Uncovering Volt Typhoon
Volt Typhoon is an “advanced persistent threat group” that has been active since at least mid-2021. It’s believed to be sponsored by the Chinese government and is targeting critical infrastructure organisations in the US.

The group has focused much of its efforts on Guam. Located in the Western Pacific, this US island territory is home to a significant and growing US military presence, including the air force, a contingent of the marines, and the US navy’s nuclear-capable submarines.

It’s likely the Volt Typhoon attackers intended to gain access to networks connected to US critical infrastructure to disrupt communications, command and control systems, and maintain a persistent presence on the networks.

Volt Typhoon is the name Microsoft and the Five Eyes intelligence agencies have given a Chinese state sponsored hacking group, which they say installed a mysterious code in Guam’s telecommunications systems. https://t.co/xEwith7ZmM

— RN Breakfast (@RNBreakfast) May 25, 2023

The latter tactic would allow China to influence operations during a potential conflict in the South China Sea.

Australia wasn’t directly impacted by Volt Typhoon, according to official statements. Nevertheless, it would be a primary target for similar operations in the event of conflict.

As for how Volt Typhoon was caught, this hasn’t been disclosed. But Microsoft documents highlight previous observations of the threat actor attempting to dump credentials and stolen data from the victim organisation. It’s likely this led to the discovery of compromised networks and devices.

Living-off-the-land
The hackers initially gained access to networks through internet-facing Fortinet FortiGuard devices, such as routers. Once inside, they employed a technique called “living-off-the-land”.

This is when attackers rely on using the resources already contained within the exploited system, rather than bringing in external tools. For example, they will typically use applications such as PowerShell (a Microsoft management programme) and Windows Management Instrumentation to access data and network functions.

By using internal resources, attackers can bypass safeguards that alert organisations to unauthorised access to their networks. Since no malicious software is used, they appear as a legitimate user.

As such, living-off-the-land allows for lateral movement within the network, and provides opportunity for a persistent, long-term attack.

The simultaneous announcements from the Five Eyes partners points to the seriousness of the Volt Typhoon compromise. It will likely serve as a warning to other nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Who are the Five Eyes?
Formed in 1955, the Five Eyes alliance is an intelligence-sharing partnership comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US.

The alliance was formed after World War II to counter the potential influence of the Soviet Union. It has a specific focus on signals intelligence. This involves intercepting and analysing signals such as radio, satellite and internet communications.

The members share information and access to their respective signals intelligence agencies, and collaborate to collect and analyse vast amounts of global communications data. A Five Eyes operation might also include intelligence provided by non-member nations and the private sector.

Recently, the member countries expressed concern about China’s de facto military control over the South China Sea, its suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, and threatening moves towards Taiwan.

The latest public announcement of China’s cyber operations no doubt serves as a warning that Western nations are paying strict attention to their critical infrastructure — and can respond to China’s digital aggression.

In 2019, Australia was targeted by Chinese state-backed threat actors gaining unauthorised access to Parliament House’s computer network. Indeed, there is evidence that China is engaged in a concerted effort to target Australia’s public and private networks.

The Five Eyes alliance may well be one of the only deterrents we have against long-term, persistent attacks against our critical infrastructure.

Dennis B. Desmond is a lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Philippines and the United States will hold their largest Balikatan exercise this year, with 17,600 troops expected to participate in the annual combined joint exercise next month, says Armed Forces of the Philippines.

This follows recent an announcement by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr that the Philippines was rolling back history to open four new bases “scattered” around the country to US forces after Subic Bay naval base was closed in 1992.

Balikatan spokesperson Colonel Michael Logico told reporters that about 12,000 US troops and 111 more from the Australian Defence Force would participate in this year’s exercises, along with 5000 Philippine soldiers.

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The exercises, scheduled to take place from April 11 to 28, will be held in areas in Northern Luzon, Palawan, and Antique.

“This is officially the largest Balikatan exercise,” Logico said.

The number of troops participating in this year’s exercises is nearly double the 8900 contingent seen in 2022. At the time, Balikatan 2022 had been the “largest-ever” iteration of the exercise.

A team from Japan was also expected to observe this year’s joint exercises.

Colonel Logico said Japan would stay as an observer this year because Manila and Tokyo did not have a status of forces agreement.

New exercises
Logico said new exercises to be featured in Balikatan 2023 include cyber defence exercises and live fire exercises at sea. Previous joint exercises, usually held in land-based sites, mostly involved the army and Air Force.

“We are now going to be exercising outside the traditional areas where we’re used to operating on…. We’re exercising in key locations where we are able to utilise all our service components,” Colonel Logico said.

While the AFP has held live fire exercises at sea on its own, it will be a first for Philippine and US troops jointly.

The defence assets to be featured include the Philippine Navy’s frigates, the Air Force’s FA-50 jets, and other newly acquired artillery, said Logico. Similar to last year’s exercises, the US is again expected to bring in its High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and Patriot missile system.

Exercises this year are aimed at increasing interoperability among the allies’ forces, and will also focus on “maritime defense, coast defense, and maritime domain awareness.”

Joint exercises between the Philippines and US, along with Australia, come on the heels of the Marcos government’s efforts to bolster security ties with its treaty ally, as well as regional partners, following concerns over China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.

In February, President Marcos approved the expansion of a key military deal that allows the US military greater access to local bases in the country.

Days later, the Philippine leader also expressed willingness to strengthen defence ties with Japan, adding he was open to a reciprocal access agreement with the neighboring nation if it would help protect Filipino fishermen and the Philippines’ maritime territory.

On Tuesday, Colonel Logico said upcoming exercises between the Philippines and its partners were not aimed against any country, including China.

Colonel Logico said, “We are here to practise, we are here to show that we are combat ready.

“Every country has the absolute and inalienable right to exercise within our territory, we have the absolute, inalienable right to defend our territory,” he added.

Republished from Rappler with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

In recent days a CIA-linked firm got the federal government to stop research with a Chinese university, a State Department funded group convinced parliament to criticize China and the Pentagon’s panic over a balloon prompted Global Affairs to summon China’s ambassador. But even media critic Canadaland prefers to focus on Chinese interference in Canada.

According to “Big Trouble with Meddling China”, a 45-minute Canadaland podcast released last week, “the Chinese state has infiltrated Canadian democracy at all levels, according to a bombshell report from investigative reporter Sam Cooper of Global News.” Three months ago, the author of Wilful Blindness: How a network of narcos, tycoons and CCP agents Infiltrated the West reported on a “vast campaign of foreign interference”. In it, Cooper claimed that Canadian intelligence officials warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that at least 11 candidates running in the 2019 federal election were financed by a clandestine Chinese influence network. But Cooper’s report “is based on unsubstantiated claims and dubious allegations”, noted Brendan Devlin in a convincing Canadian Dimension response headlined “Is China a threat to Canadian democracy?”

Canadaland’s Jesse Brown is far more trusting of Cooper and his intelligence sources. He doesn’t question Cooper about CSIS’ interest, which is tied to its US counterparts, in hyping the China threat. Instead, the media critic claims Cooper’s reporting hasn’t received adequate attention despite it being at the centre of a major spat between Trudeau and Chinese president Xi Jinping at the G20 in November.

Brown doesn’t even challenge Cooper when he names China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, as well as “allied” countries, interfering in Canadian politics. What kind of journalist names only states that Ottawa considers “enemies”? A mouthpiece of the US Empire aligned intelligence apparatus?

The ‘China is undermining Canadian democracy story’ line is driven by another country’s far greater influence, which the media largely ignores. Atop its front-page last week, the Globe and Mail published “Canadian universities conducting joint research with Chinese military scientists” and then two days later “Ottawa vows to curb Canadian university research with Chinese military scientists”. The source for the Globe’s expose about scientists tied to China’s National University of Defence Technology was Strider Technologies. The Salt Lake City based firm is full of former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials, including Assistant Director John Mullen. The Globe failed to mention this fact.

Last Thursday the House of Commons unanimously endorsed a resolution reiterating its claim that China was committing genocide in Xinjiang and calling for Canada to accept 10,000 Uyghur refugees. Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi, working closely with the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, drove the initiative. The group’s website stated the “Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project is funded by the Washington-based National Endowment Fund for Democracy for its Advocacy work in Canada.” The media ignores how the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project is funded by the US government’s NED and that it openly seeks to balkanize China, rejecting the legitimacy of the nationalist/communist revolution that united China after more than a century of foreign domination.

Last week the US military convinced Canadian officials to hype a large balloon that apparently passed through Canadian airspace at the end of January. Global Affairs summoned the Chinese ambassador in Ottawa and Melanie Joly said the federal government would “take all necessary measures to safeguard Canada’s sensitive information”. Subsequently, Ottawa has joined Washington in supporting shooting down three more unidentified objects that many are suggesting are Chinese.

Two months ago, the Liberals released an Indo-Pacific Strategy that labeled China “an increasingly disruptive global power” engaged in “foreign interference and increasingly coercive treatment of other countries.” US ambassador David Cohen pushed for the strategy and immediately applauded its release.

Anti-China hysteria is sweeping through US public life. Its air force recently scuttled a plan for a corn mill in North Dakota claiming the Chinese firm’s investment represented a “significant threat” while Texas and other states are looking at banning people from China from buying land, homes or other buildings. Many US states have banned TikTok from public Wi-Fi networks, including at universities, and there’s talk of shuttering the Chinese-owned social media platform out right.

Washington is waging an economic war on China. The US has launched an unprecedented international campaign to block China’s access to advanced semiconductor chips.

Last week four-star Air Force General Mike Minihan, head of US Air Mobility Command, told his troops that the economic war is likely to turn into a shooting conflict by 2025. Minihan wrote that they should prepare for war with China, which will likely centre on Taiwan. In the recently signed budget the US allocated $10 billion over five years in arms to Taiwan, which most of the world considers a province of China. Hundreds of US troops are also stationed on the island.

Last week the US signed an agreement with the Philippines to use more bases. In “US secures deal on Philippines bases to complete arc around China” the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reported, “the US has secured access to four additional military bases in the Philippines – a key bit of real estate which would offer a front seat to monitor the Chinese in the South China Sea and around Taiwan. With the deal, Washington has stitched the gap in the arc of US alliances stretching from South Korea and Japan in the north to Australia in the south. The missing link had been the Philippines, which borders two of the biggest potential flashpoints — Taiwan and the South China Sea.”

For its part, CNN reported last week on “plans to deploy new US Marine units to Japanese islands. The US Marine Corps also opened a new base on Guam last week, a strategically important US island east of the Philippines.”

The US already has over 100,000 troops stationed around China. Washington spends $2,400 a year per citizen on its military whereas Beijing spends $200 for each Chinese citizen. The US also spends twice as a much on militarism as a percent of its GDP.

Recently US ally Japan announced a plan to spend $320 billion US on its military over the next five years. Japan plans to acquire missiles that can strike China and its new National Security Strategy labels that country its “greatest strategic challenge ever”.

The US Empire is taking an ever more aggressive posture towards China and Washington is demanding Canada’s support, which Ottawa is increasingly giving.

Complaining about alleged Chinese influence on Canadian democracy without mentioning the far greater US influence is like calling the police on a shoplifter while a bull rampages in your porcelain shop.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.

The fate of Myanmar has major implications for a free and open Indo-Pacific.

An undemocratic Myanmar serves no one’s interests except China, which is consolidating its economic and strategic influence in its smaller neighbour in pursuit of its two-ocean strategy.

Since the coup China has been — by far — the main source of foreign investment in Myanmar.

• READ MORE: Friday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?
• Conflict in the South China Sea threatens 90 percent of Australia’s fuel imports: study
• As Myanmar suffers, the military junta is desperate, isolated and running out of options

This includes US$2.5 billion in a gas-fired power plant to be built west of Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, that will be 81 percent owned and operated by Chinese companies.

Among the dozens of infrastructure projects China is funding are high-speed rail links and dams. But its most strategically important investment is the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, encompassing oil and gas pipelines, roads and rail links costing many tens of billions of dollars.

The corridor’s “jewel in the crown” is a deep-sea port to be built at Kyaukphyu, on Myanmar’s west coast, at an estimated cost of US$7 billion.

This will finally give China its long-desired “back door” to the Indian Ocean.

Natural gas from Myanmar can help China reduce its dependence on imports from suppliers such as Australia. Access to the Indian Ocean will enable China to import gas and oil from the Middle East, Africa and Venezuela without ships having to pass through the contested waters of the South China Sea to Chinese ports.

About 80 percent of China’s oil imports now move through the South China Sea via the Malacca Strait, which is just 65 kilometres wide at its narrowest point between the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia’s Sumatra.

Overcoming this strategic vulnerability arguably makes the Kyaukphyu port and pipelines the most important element of China’s Belt and Road initiative to reshape global trade routes and assert its influence over other nations.

Deepening relationship
Most of China’s infrastructure investment was planned before Myanmar’s coup. But whereas other governments and foreign investors have sought to distance themselves from the junta since it overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in February 2021, China has deepened its relationship.

China is the Myanmar regime’s most important international supporter. In April Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would support Myanmar “no matter how the situation changes”. In May it used its veto power on the United Nations Security Council to thwart a statement expressing concern about violence and the growing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.

Work continues on projects associated with the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. New ventures (such as the aforementioned power station) have been approved.
More projects are on the cards. In June, for example, China’s embassy in Myanmar announced the completion of a feasibility study to upgrade the Wan Pong port on the Lancang-Mekong River in Myanmar’s east.

Debt trap warnings
In 2020, before the coup, Myanmar’s auditor general Maw Than warned of growing indebtedness to China, with Chinese lenders charging higher interest payments than those from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

At that time about 40 percent of Myanmar’s foreign debt of US$10 billion was owed to China. It is likely to be greater now. It will only increase the longer a military dictatorship, with few other supporters or sources of foreign money, remains in power, dragging down Myanmar’s economy.

Efforts to restore democracy in Myanmar should therefore be seen as crucial to the long-term strategic interests of the region’s democracies, and to global peace and prosperity, given the increasing belligerence of China under Xi Jinping.

Xi, now president for life, this month told the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for war. A compliant and indebted Myanmar with a deep-sea port controlled by Chinese interests tips the scales towards that happening.

A democratic and independent Myanmar is a counter-strategy to this potential.

Calls for sanctions
Myanmar’s democracy movement wants the international community to impose tough sanctions on the junta. But few have responded.

The United States and United Kingdom have gone furthest, banning business dealings with Myanmar military officials and state-owned or private companies controlled by the military.

The European Union and Canada have imposed sanctions against a more limited range of individuals and economic entities.

South Korea has suspended financing new infrastructure projects. Japan has suspended aid and postponed the launch of Myanmar’s first satellite. New Zealand has suspended political and military contact.

Australia has suspended military cooperation (with some pre-existing restrictions on dealing with military leaders imposed following the human rights atrocities committed against the Rohingya in 2017.

But that’s about it.

Myanmar’s closest neighbours in the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations are still committed to a policy of dialogue and “non-interference” – though Malaysia and Indonesia are increasingly arguing for a tougher approach as the atrocities mount.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project says the only country now more violent than Myanmar is Ukraine.

Given its unique geo-strategic position, self-interest alone should be enough for the international community to take greater action.

Dr Htwe Htwe Thein, associate professor, Curtin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Not so for China.  For China, the post-pandemic era is well under way.

When SARS-CoV-2, later renamed by WHO to Covid-19, hit Wuhan in January 2020, China was prepared. Chinese authorities proceeded with warp-speed to prevent the spread of this new corona disease, by a radical lockdown of Wuhan and extending it to Hubei Province. Later, other areas of risk were locked down, including about 80% of China’s production and manufacturing apparatus. The result was astounding. Within a few months, by about mid-2020, China was in control of Covid, and gradually started opening up crucial areas, including the production process, all the while maintaining strict protection measures.

By the end of 2020 China’s economy was practically working at full speed and achieving, according to IMF’s very conservative account, a 2.6% growth for the year. China’s own, and perhaps more realistic projections, were closer to 3.5%. IMF growth projections for China in 2021 stand at 8.4%. China’s economic expansion in 2022 is projected at 5.6%. This is way above any other country in the world.

Compare this with 2020 economic declines way into the red for the US and Europe, of 25% to 35%, and 10% to 15%, respectively. These are real figures. Not necessarily the published ones.

Future expansion in China takes into account that much of the projected growth over the coming years will be internal “horizontal” growth,  helping China’s interior and western provinces catching up with infrastructure, research and development, as well as education facilities – increasing the overall level of well-being to reduce the gap with the highly-developed eastern areas.

China’s economic recovery and her industrial apparatus working at full speed is good for China and good for the world, because China had become in the past four decades or so the western principal supply chain, mainly the US and Europe. We are talking crucial supplies, such as medical equipment, medication and ingredients for medication.  About 80% – 90% used in the west comes from China.

China’s rapid economic growth may be mostly attributed to two main factors: large-scale investments – financed by predominantly domestic savings and foreign capital and rapid productivity growth. These two features appear to have gone hand in hand.

China remains attractive for investors. In addition to medical equipment, China supplies the west and the world with electronic equipment and is meant to become one of the key developers and exporter of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to accelerate and facilitate research and manufacturing processes, while minimizing negative environmental impacts.

China’s outlook for the future is bright. However, a number of anormal factors have to be considered, for instance:

(i) The unresolved covid issues in the west, which may be reducing demand naturally or by force – possibly import restrictions for goods from China as a way of constant pressure on China;

(ii) Continuation of a direct and indirect trade and currency war on China. To the detriment of the US-dollar, China’s currency, the yuan  and soon the digital yuan as international payment currency, independent from western controlled monetary transfer modes, is gaining rapidly in status as an international reserve money. According to some estimates, in five years the yuan may account for up to 30% of all world reserves. As a parenthesis, the US-dollar in the early 1990s amounted to more than 90% of worldwide reserve denominations; today that proportion has shrunk to less than 60%; and,

(iii) The west, led by Washington, is intent to harm China in whatever way they can. It will not succeed. Washington knows it. But it is a typical characteristic of a dying beast to lash around itself to destroy as much as possible in its surroundings before it collapses.

Just as an example which the world at large is probably unaware of, China is presently surrounded by about 1,400 US military bases, or bases of other countries which host US military equipment and personnel. About 60% of the US navy fleet is currently stationed in the South China Sea.

Just imagine what would happen, if China or any other super-power, would be surrounding the US with military basis and an aggressive Navy fleet!

China is constantly harassed, sanctioned and slandered with outright lies. One of the prevalent examples of defamations, is her alleged inhuman treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province. Total population of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwestern China is about 26 million, of which some 12 million are Uyghurs, mostly of Muslim belief.

Uyghur Muslims are regularly recruited by US secret services from across the border with Afghanistan, sent to fight the Jihad in the Middle East, and when some of them return, China makes an effort to re-school and re-integrate them into society.

Could the real reason for this western aggression be that Xinjiang province, the largest and western-most province of China, is also a principal hub for the two or more main routes of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – trans-Asia Routes, by rail through Pakistan to the Gwadar Port in the Persian Gulf, and possibly by road through the newly to become autonomous Afghanistan, connecting China with Iran?

China is perceived as a threat to western hegemonic thinking – to western-style globalization, which is the concept of a One World Order over a borderless western corporate and banking-controlled world – and because China is well positioned to become the world’s number one economy in absolute terms within a few years.

These are challenges to be kept in mind in planning China’s future economic development.

In fact, already today China is number one in PPP-terms (purchasing power parity), which is the only indicator that counts, namely how much of goods and services may be acquired with a unit of currency.

Taking these challenges into account, and following her non-aggressive and non-expansive moving-forward style, China may be embarking on a three-pronged development approach. Overarching this tactic may include China’s 2025 Plan and 2035/2050 vision: A strong emphasis on economic and defense autonomy.

(i) Outreach and connecting with the rest of the world through President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, also called One Belt One Road (OBOR) which is patterned according to the ancient Silk Road more than 2,100 years ago, a peaceful trade route connecting Eastern China through Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

On a global scale, OBOR embraces currently more than 130 countries and over 30 international organizations, including 18 countries of the European Union. OBOR offers their partners participation – no coercion. The attraction and philosophy behind OBOR is shared benefits – the concept of win-win. OBOR may be the road to socioeconomic recovery from covid consequences and cross-border cooperation for participating countries.

OBOR is also aiming at a multi-polar world where partner countries would equally benefit through infrastructure, industrial joint ventures, cultural exchange, exploration of new renewable sources of energy, research and education projects working towards a joint future with prosperity for all.

Here is the distinction between the western and Chinese meaning of “globalization”. In the west, it means a unipolar world controlled by one hegemon, the US of A, with one army called NATO which forcibly holds the west, mainly Europe, together. NATO, with its 2.5 billion-dollars official budget – unofficially a multiple of this amount reaching into the trillions – spreads already with its tentacles into South America, Colombia.

Together the west, or Global North, is a conglomerate of NATO-vassal-countries with little autonomy as compared to Chinese globalization – meaning a multi-polar connection of countries, all the while OBOR-linked countries maintain their sovereignty. This is “globalization” with Chinese characteristics.

(ii) In a precautionary detachment from western dependence, China is focusing trade development and cooperation with her ASEAN partners. In November 2020, after 8 years of negotiations, China signed a free trade agreement with the ten ASEAN nations, plus Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, altogether 15 countries, including China.

The so-called Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, covers some 2.2 billion people, commanding about 30% of the world’s GDP. This is a never before reached agreement in size, value and tenor.

China and Russia have a longstanding strategic partnership, containing bilateral agreements that also enter into this new trade fold. The countries of the Central Asia Economic Union (CAEU), consisting mostly of former Soviet Republics, as well as members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), are likewise integrated into the eastern trade block.

The RCEP’s trade deals will be carried out in local currencies and in yuan – no US dollars. The RCEP is, therefore, also an instrument for dedollarizing, primarily in the Asia-Pacific Region, and gradually moving across the globe; and,

(iii) China will focus much of her future development on her internal and western regions – increase the standard of well-being of populations, infrastructure, research and development – industrial development, joint ventures, including with foreign capital. To achieve a better equilibrium between eastern and western China is crucial for socioeconomic sustainability.

This dual development approach, on the one hand, external trade with close ASEAN associates, as well as with OBOR partners; and on the other, achieving internal equilibrium and well-being, is a circular development, feeding on each other, minimizing risks and impacts of western adversary aggressions.

China’s achievements in her 71 years of revolution speak for themselves. They are unmatched by any nation in recent history. From a country largely ruined by western-influenced colonization and conflicts, China rose from the ashes, by not only lifting 800 million people out of poverty, but also by becoming food, health and education self-sufficient.

Coinciding with the 4 March 2021, opening of the Chinese People’s political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., late President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, asked the pertinent question, “Can We Forge a New Era of Humanity Before It’s Too Late?” – His answer is simple but lucid: “Unless we move from a civilization based on wealth accumulation to a life-affirming, ecological civilization, we will continue accelerating towards global catastrophe.”

This understanding is also at the forefront of China’s vision for the next 15 to 20 years – and beyond. A China-internal objective is an equitable development to well-being for all; and on a world-scale, a community with shared benefits for all.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Peter Koenig.

Rising tensions between Australia and China have raised the question of where New Zealand would stand if things escalate further.

Close trans-Tasman friend and ally Australia is taking a more aggressive stance against China – with South China Sea and Taiwan potential flashpoints.

And recent statements from its defence minister about a possible conflict with China have caused some alarm – a prospect that could put New Zealand under real pressure – to pick a side.

• READ MORE: Parliament’s human rights vote ‘gross interference’, says China

After a year of heavy trade strikes against Australian exports, diplomatic outbursts and increasing military activity in the region, new Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton told the ABC conflict with China over Taiwan “should not be discounted”.

New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta said she could not comment on “prospective thinking about what may or may not happen”, adding New Zealand “values” the important relationship with Australia.

It did “make for an uncomfortable situation” to have Australia and China at loggerheads and “where you see your neighbours being treated in such a punitive way”, she said.

Australia was in a different position to New Zealand and “obviously see things in a certain way, because they have neighbours and are in a part of the region where they feel several things more acutely and we will remain closely connected in the way that we share our view of what’s happening in our region”, Mahuta said.

‘Nimble, respectful and consistent’
If it came down to taking sides – what would New Zealand do?

“New Zealand is very aware that we are a small country in the Pacific,” Mahuta said.

“And we are also aware that the nature of our relationships, both bilateral and multilateral, require us to be nimble, respectful, consistent and predictable in the way that we treat our nearest neighbours, but also those who we have bilateral relationships with, no matter whether they are big or small relationships.”

Leading defence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan said storm clouds were gathering and armed conflict was now a “distinct possibility”.

“Maybe not directly between the Australians and the Chinese, unless there’s a miscalculation involving a Australian warship, doing freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea,” Dr Buchanan said.

“But more than likely, as part of a dispute that gets out of control and Australia, as part of a coalition of countries, probably led by the United States, that is duty bound to respond, so for example, Taiwan.”

If such a conflict erupted, that would leave New Zealand “between a rock and hard place” because it would be asked to join that coalition, Dr Buchanan said.

That would require some “hard decisions … that have been in the making for well over a decade when we decided to throw most of our trade ships into the Chinese market”.

“Now we’re in on the horns of a dilemma and a bit of a quandary should our security partners ask us to join them in the common defence of a country suffering from Chinese aggression,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Rising tensions between Australia and China have raised the question of where New Zealand would stand if things escalate further.

Close trans-Tasman friend and ally Australia is taking a more aggressive stance against China – with South China Sea and Taiwan potential flashpoints.

And recent statements from its defence minister about a possible conflict with China have caused some alarm – a prospect that could put New Zealand under real pressure – to pick a side.

After a year of heavy trade strikes against Australian exports, diplomatic outbursts and increasing military activity in the region, new Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton told the ABC conflict with China over Taiwan “should not be discounted”.

New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta said she could not comment on “prospective thinking about what may or may not happen”, adding New Zealand “values” the important relationship with Australia.

It did “make for an uncomfortable situation” to have Australia and China at loggerheads and “where you see your neighbours being treated in such a punitive way”, she said.

Australia was in a different position to New Zealand and “obviously see things in a certain way, because they have neighbours and are in a part of the region where they feel several things more acutely and we will remain closely connected in the way that we share our view of what’s happening in our region”, Mahuta said.

‘Nimble, respectful and consistent’
If it came down to taking sides – what would New Zealand do?

“New Zealand is very aware that we are a small country in the Pacific,” Mahuta said.

“And we are also aware that the nature of our relationships, both bilateral and multilateral, require us to be nimble, respectful, consistent and predictable in the way that we treat our nearest neighbours, but also those who we have bilateral relationships with, no matter whether they are big or small relationships.”

Leading defence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan said storm clouds were gathering and armed conflict was now a “distinct possibility”.

“Maybe not directly between the Australians and the Chinese, unless there’s a miscalculation involving a Australian warship, doing freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea,” Dr Buchanan said.

“But more than likely, as part of a dispute that gets out of control and Australia, as part of a coalition of countries, probably led by the United States, that is duty bound to respond, so for example, Taiwan.”

If such a conflict erupted, that would leave New Zealand “between a rock and hard place” because it would be asked to join that coalition, Dr Buchanan said.

That would require some “hard decisions … that have been in the making for well over a decade when we decided to throw most of our trade ships into the Chinese market”.

“Now we’re in on the horns of a dilemma and a bit of a quandary should our security partners ask us to join them in the common defence of a country suffering from Chinese aggression,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Throwing around personal insults against the leaders of those two countries is one thing. But actually winding up military tensions is quite another which shows how reckless the Biden administration is.

Since Joe Biden became the 46th president, there has been an alarming increase in hostile rhetoric and conduct by the US toward Russia and China.

Ludicrously, the Biden administration is accusing Moscow and Beijing of aggression towards European and Asian allies when it is the United States that is building up warships, warplanes, missiles and troops in sensitive regions that threaten Russia and China.

Under this Democrat president, the US is increasing lethal military supplies to the Ukraine where an anti-Russia regime in Kiev has been waging a seven-year war against ethnic Russian people in the east of that country on Russia’s border. It is no coincidence that the US-backed regime in Kiev is emboldened to step up offensive military attacks on civilian centers in east Ukraine. The city of Donetsk is this week reportedly coming under intensified shelling.

Likewise, the Biden White House has become more vocal in support of Taiwan, the breakaway island territory off China’s southern coast. US military leaders are warning that China might invade the island, which most nations view to be a sovereign part of Chinese territory. Since 1979, even the US recognized this under its One China policy.

Washington is, however, conducting a record number of military maneuvers in the South China Sea and through the Strait of Taiwan, only about 100 kilometers from mainland China. This week – for the fourth time since Biden took office, the US dispatched a guided-missile destroyer through the Strait.

China’s territorial claims in the region have a lot more credibility than America’s posturing about “defending allies” and so-called “freedom of navigation” exercises.

But the reckless rhetoric from the Biden administration – labelling Russia and China as “aggressors” – is serving to embolden regimes in Ukraine and Taiwan to engage in dangerous provocations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week called on the US-led NATO alliance to fast-track membership for his country. Such a move would be incendiary for Russia’s national security. The Kiev regime is also intensifying offensive operations in east Ukraine which is another form of provocation toward Russia due to Washington’s indulgence.

Similarly, the anti-China separatists in Taiwan are feeling ever-more confident in taking a militarist posture. With American warships sailing nearby, the Taiwanese authorities this week warned they would not hesitate to shoot down Chinese aircraft that approach the island. This is a flagrant provocation to Beijing’s authority.

The United States has indicated it will support Ukraine or Taiwan if a war with Russia or China were to erupt. Such a policy is an incentive for rogue conduct leading to war.

It is perplexing to see just how far the Biden administration is willing to go in risking a war with either Russia or China, or both at the same time. Any such war would inevitably result in a nuclear conflagration in which tens of millions of people would die, if not bring about the end of the world as we know it.

This is a measure of how desperate the American imperial state is in trying to maintain its ambitions of global hegemony and domination. US global power is waning – in line with the historic failing of its capitalist system – and in order to offset that loss of power, its ruling class are resorting to maniacal militarism against perceived geopolitical rivals. The objective is to intimidate and terrorize the world into accepting its “rules-based order”. That is rules ordered by the US for its advantage and privileges over others.

Russia and China, and many other nations, are refusing to capitulate to America’s diktat. There was a time when such bullying may have worked. Not any more.

American rulers – the deep state – and their puppet president are behaving like arsonists. They’re playing with fire in provoking Russia and China. It is criminal and it’s psychopathic recklessness. It’s also abominable that the planet is being held hostage by such a crazy American regime.

• First published in Sputnik News

This article was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2021 at 11:09pm and is filed under China, Joe Biden, Russia, South China Sea, Taiwan, Ukraine, US Foreign Policy, US Hegemony.

There was a time when the United States and its allies could browbeat others with condemnations. Not any more. China’s colossal global economic power and growing international influence has been a game-changer in the old Western practice of imperialist arrogance.

The shock came at the Alaska summit earlier this month between US top diplomat Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterparts. Blinken was expecting to lecture China over alleged human rights violations. Then Yang Jiechi, Beijing’s foreign policy chief, took Blinken to task over a range of past and current human rights issues afflicting the United States. Washington was left reeling from the lashes.

Western habits die hard, though. Following the fiasco in Alaska, the United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union coordinated sanctions on Chinese officials over provocative allegations of genocide against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Australia and New Zealand, which are part of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence network, also supported the raft of sanctions.

Again China caused shock when it quickly hit back with its own counter-sanctions against each of these Western states. The Americans and their allies were aghast that anyone would have the temerity to stand up to them.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau bemoaned: “China’s sanctions are an attack on transparency and freedom of expression – values at the heart of our democracy.”

Let’s unpack the contentions a bit. First of all, Western claims about genocide in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang are dubious and smack of political grandstanding in order to give Washington and its allies a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs.

The latest Western sanctions are based on a report by a shady Washington-based think-tank Newlines Institute of Strategic Policy. Its report claiming “genocide” against the Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang has the hallmarks of a propaganda screed, not remotely the work of independent scholarly research. Both China and independent journalists at the respected US-based Grayzone have dismissed the claims as fabrication and distortion.

For the United States and other Western governments to level sanctions against China citing the above “report” is highly provocative. It also betrays the real objective, which is to undermine Beijing. This is a top geopolitical priority for Washington. Under the Biden administration, Washington has relearned the value of “diplomacy” – that is the advantage of corralling allies into a hostile front, rather than Trump’s America First go-it-alone policy.

Granted, China does have problems with its Xinjiang region. As Australia’s premier think-tank Lowy Institute noted: “Ethnic unrest and terrorism in Xinjiang has been an ongoing concern for Chinese authorities for decades.”

Due to the two-decade-old US-led war in Afghanistan there has been a serious problem for the Chinese authorities from radicalization of the Uyghur population. Thousands of fighters from Xinjiang have trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan and have taken their “global jihad” to Syria and other Central Asian countries. It is their stated objective to return to Xinjiang and liberate it as a caliphate of East Turkestan separate from China.

Indeed, the American government has acknowledged previously that several Uyghur militants were detained at its notorious Guantanamo detention center.

The United States and its NATO and other allies, Australia and New Zealand, have all created the disaster that is Afghanistan. The war has scarred generations of Afghans and radicalized terrorist networks across the Middle East and Central Asia, which are a major concern for China’s security.

Beijing’s counterinsurgency policies have succeeded in tamping down extremism among its Uyghur people. The population has grown to around 12 million, nearly half the region’s total. This and general economic advances are cited by Beijing as evidence refuting Western claims of “genocide”. China says it runs vocational training centers and not “concentration camps”, as Western governments maintain. Beijing has reportedly agreed to an open visit by United Nations officials to verify conditions.

Western hypocrisy towards China is astounding. Its claims about China committing genocide and forced labor are projections of its own past and current violations against indigenous people and ethnic minorities. The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia have vile histories stained from colonialist extermination and slavery.

But specifically with regard to the Uyghur, the Western duplicity is awesome. The mass killing, torture and destruction meted out in Afghanistan by Western troops have fueled the radicalization in China’s Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan. The Americans, British and Australians in particular have huge blood on their hands.

An official report into unlawful killings by Australian special forces found that dozens of Afghan civilians, including children, were murdered in cold blood. When China’s foreign ministry highlighted the killings, the Australian premier Scott Morrison recoiled to decry Beijing’s remarks as “offensive” and “repugnant”. Morrison demanded China issue an apology for daring to point out the war crimes committed in Afghanistan by Australian troops.

It is absurd and ironic that Western states which destroyed Afghanistan with war crimes and crimes against humanity have the brass neck to censure China over non-existent crimes in its own region of Xinjiang. And especially regarding China’s internal affairs with its Uyghur people, some of whom have been radicalized by terrorism stemming from Western mass-murder in Afghanistan.

China is, however, not letting this Western hypocrisy pass. Beijing is hitting back to point out who the real culprits are. Its vast global economic power and increasing trade partnerships with over 100 nations through the Belt and Road Initiative all combine to give China’s words a tour de force that the Western states cannot handle. Hence, they are falling over in shock when China hits back.

The United States thinks it can line up a coalition of nations against China.

But Europe, Britain, Canada and Australia – all of whom depend on China’s growth and goodwill – can expect to pay a heavy price for being Uncle Sam’s lapdogs.

• First published in Sputnik

This article was posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2021 at 1:13pm and is filed under Afghanistan, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China, Europe, Exploitation, Iran, Joe Biden, Militarism, Propagandists, Russia, Sanctions, South China Sea, Syria, The “West”, United Kingdom, US Foreign Policy, US Hegemony, US Military, US Pivot to Asia, US War Crimes.

The comparison is quite apt if we remember the long-anticipated shift in Britain’s foreign policy and Johnson’s conservative government’s pressing need to chart a new global course in search for new allies – and new enemies.

Xi’s words in 2019 signaled a new era in Chinese foreign policy, where Beijing hoped to send a message to its allies and enemies that the rules of the game were finally changing in its favor, and that China’s economic miracle – launched under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping in 1992 – would no longer be confined to the realm of wealth accumulation, but would exceed this to politics and military strength, as well.

In China’s case, Xi’s declarations were not a shift per se, but rather a rational progression. However, in the case of Britain, the process, though ultimately rational, is hardly straightforward. After officially leaving the European Union in January 2020, Britain was expected to articulate a new national agenda. This articulation, however, was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the multiple crises it generated.

Several scenarios, regarding the nature of Britain’s new agenda, were plausible:

One, that Britain maintains a degree of political proximity to the EU, thus avoiding more negative repercussions of Brexit;

Two, for Britain to return to its former alliance with the US, begun in earnest in the post-World War II era and the formation of NATO and reaching its zenith in the run up to the Iraq invasion in 2003;

Finally, for Britain to play the role of the mediator, standing at an equal distance among all parties, so that it may reap the benefits of its unique position as a strong country with a massive global network.

A government’s report, “Global Britain in a Competitive Age”, released on March 16, and Johnson’s  subsequent speech, indicate that Britain has chosen the second option.

The report clearly prioritizes the British-American alliance above all others, stating that “The United States will remain the UK’s most important strategic ally and partner”, and underscoring Britain’s need to place greater focus on the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region, calling it “the centre of intensifying geopolitical competition”.

Therefore, unsurprisingly, Britain is now set to dispatch a military carrier to the South China Sea, and is preparing to expand its nuclear arsenal from 180 to 260 warheads, in obvious violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The latter move can be directly attributed to Britain’s new political realignment which roughly follows the maxim of ‘the enemy of my friend is my enemy’.

The government’s report places particular emphasis on China, warning against its increased “international assertiveness” and “growing importance in the Indo-Pacific”. Furthermore, it calls for greater investment in enhancing “China-facing capabilities” and responding to “the systematic challenge” that China “poses to our security”.

How additional nuclear warheads will allow Britain to achieve its above objectives remains uncertain. Compared with Russia and the US, Britain’s nuclear arsenal, although duly destructive, is negligible in terms of its overall size. However, as history has taught us, nuclear weapons are rarely manufactured to be used in war – with the single exception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The number of nuclear warheads and the precise position of their operational deployment are usually meant to send a message, not merely that of strength or resolve, but also to delineate where a specific country stands in terms of its alliances.

The US-Soviet Cold War, for example, was expressed largely through a relentless arms race, with nuclear weapons playing a central role in that polarizing conflict, which divided the world into two major ideological-political camps.

Now that China is likely to claim the superpower status enjoyed by the Soviets until the early 1990s, a new Great Game and Cold War can be felt, not only in the Asia Pacific region, but as far away as Africa and South America. While Europe continues to hedge its bets in this new global conflict – reassured by the size of its members’ collective economies – Britain, thanks to Brexit, no longer has that leverage. No longer an EU member, Britain is now keen to protect its global interests through a direct commitment to US interests. Now that China has been designated as America’s new enemy, Britain must play along.

While much media coverage has been dedicated to the expansion of Britain’s nuclear arsenal, little attention has been paid to the fact that the British move is a mere step in a larger political scheme, which ultimately aims at executing a British tilt to Asia, similar to the US ‘pivot to Asia’, declared by the Barack Obama Administration nearly a decade ago.

The British foreign policy shift is an unprecedented gamble for London, as the nature of the new Cold War is fundamentally different from the previous one; this time around, the ‘West’ is divided, torn by politics and crises, while NATO is no longer the superpower it once was.

Now that Britain has made its position clear, the ball is in the Chinese court, and the new Great Game is, indeed, afoot.

This article was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2021 at 6:03pm and is filed under Arms Race, Boris Johnson, China, Cold War, Imperialism, Militarism, NATO, South China Sea, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), UK Military, United Kingdom, US Pivot to Asia, Xi Jinping.

Background

China has reacted strongly to a senior U-S official’s unannounced visit to Taiwan, warning that it will take legitimate and necessary action according to circumstances.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman reiterated Beijing’s firm opposition to any official ties between Taiwan and the US. The reaction came after the media cited sources, including a Taiwanese official, as saying that U-S Navy’s Rear-Admiral Michael Studeman was on a trip to the self-ruled island. He’s the director of an agency which oversees intelligence at the U-S military’s Indo-Pacific Command. The administration of U-S President Donald Trump has recently ramped up support for Taiwan, including with the approval of new arms sales and high-level visits. Beijing has long warned against such moves. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and maintains its sovereignty over the region under the One-China policy.

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PressTV: What is your overall take on this latest US aggression against China?

Peter Koenig:  China has, of course, every right to protest against any visit and any US intervention in Taiwan, be it weapons sales, or provoking conflict over Taiwan self-declared “sovereignty” which it clearly has not, as it is but a breakaway part of Mainland China.

By and large this looks to me like one of Trump’s last Lame Duck movements to do whatever he can to ruin relations between the US and China.

In reality, it will have no impact of significance.

In fact, China’s approach to Taiwan over the past 70 years, has been one of non-aggression. With various attempts of rapprochement – which most of the times were actually disrupted by US interference – as Taiwan is used by the US, not because Washington has an interest in Taiwan’s “democracy’ – not at all – but Taiwan is a tool for Washington to seek destabilizing China, not dissimilar to what is going on in Hong Kong, or Xinjiang, the Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Tibet.

But China’s objectives are long-term and with patience – and not with force.

Just look at China’s recently signed Trade Agreement with 14 countries – the so-called Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. This agreement alone is the largest in significance and volume of its kind ever signed in recent history. It covers countries with some 2.2. billion people and controlling about one third of world GDP.

And the US is not part of it.  Worse, the US-dollar is not even a trading currency.  This must upset the US particularly – especially since the 2-year trade war Trump was waging against China resulted in absolutely zilch – nothing – for the US. To the contrary, it pushed China towards more independence and away from the US.

The same applied to Chinese partners, happy to have honest trading partners, not of the western, especially the Washington-type, that dish out sanctions when they please and when they don’t like sovereign countries’ behavior.

So – no worries for China, but geopolitically, of course, they must react to such acts against international rules of diplomacy.

PressTV:  What will change under President Biden?

PK:  Most likely nothing. To the contrary, Biden’s likely Secretary of Defense, Michèle Flournoy, played an important behind the scene role in the Obama Administration. She has not changed the aggressive position of Obama’s “pivot to Asia” which essentially consisted in surrounding China with weapons systems and in particular stationing about 60% of the US navy fleet in the South China Sea.

Though at this point, it looks like China is but the target of an off-scale aggression by President Trump, in reality, China is part of a long-term policy of the US, not only to contain China, but to dominate China.

As we see, though, to no avail.

Interestingly, China does not respond with counter-aggression. Instead she moves steadily forward with new creations, towards an objective that does not seek domination, but a multi-polar, multi-connected world, via, for example, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – not the type of globalization that especially the Biden camp – along with the corporatocracy behind the World Economic Forum (WEF) is seeking.

The US empire is on the decline and China, of course, is aware of it. Washington may be lashing around in its deteriorating times to create as much damage as possible and to bring down as many nations as they can. Case in point is the constant aggression, sanctions and punishment against Iran and Venezuela – but here too, these two countries are moving gradually away from the west and into the peaceful orbit of China – pursuing after all a shared bright future for mankind.

• Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals such as Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO) and more. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.  Peter is also co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)  He is also a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

This article was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2020 at 2:48pm and is filed under China, Interview, South China Sea, Taiwan, US Foreign Policy, US Military.

Phil Miller’s rich overview of Britain’s military footprint for Declassified UK shows it to be heavy.  “The size of the global military presence is far larger than previously thought and is likely to mean that the UK has the second largest military network in the world, after the United States.”  The UK military, for instance, has a presence in five countries in the Asia-Pacific: naval facilities in Singapore; garrisons in Brunei, drone testing facilities in Australia; three facilities in Nepal; a quick reaction force in Afghanistan.  Cyprus remains a favourite with 17 military installations.  In Africa, British personnel can be found in Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Mali.  Then come the ever dubious ties to Arab monarchies.

The nature of having such bases is to be kind to your host, despite him being theocratic, barking mad, or an old fashioned despot with fetishes. Despite the often silly pronouncements by British policy makers that they take issue with authoritarians, exceptions numerous in number abound.  The UK has never had a problem with authoritarians it can work with or despots it can coddle.  A closer look at such relations usually reveal the same ingredients: capital, commerce, perceptions of military necessity.  The approach to Oman, a state marked by absolute rule, is a case in point.

Since 1798, Britain has had a hand in ensuring the success, and the survivability, of the House of Al Said.  On September 12, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced that a further £23.8 million would go to enhancing the British Joint Logistics Support Base at Duqm port, thereby tripling “the size of the existing UK base and help facilitate Royal Navy deployments to the Indian Ocean”.  The Ministry of Defence also went so far as to describe a “renewal” of a “hugely valuable relationship,” despite the signing of a new Joint Defence Agreement in February 2019.

The agreement had been one of the swan song acts of the ailing Sultan Qaboos bin Said, whose passing this year was genuinely mourned in British political circles.  Prime Minister Boris Johnson called him “an exceptionally wise and respected leader who will be missed enormously.”  Papers of record wrote in praise of a reformer and a developer.  “The longest serving Arab ruler,” observed a sycophantic column in The Guardian, “Qaboos was an absolute monarch, albeit a relatively benevolent and popular one.”

The same Sultan, it should be said, had little fondness for freedom of expression, assembly and association, encouraged the arrests and harassment of government critics and condoned sex discrimination. But he was of the “one of us” labels: trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, an unwavering Anglophile, installed on the throne by Britain in the 1970 palace coup during the all but forgotten Dhofar Rebellion.  “Strategically,” Cobain reminds us, “the Dhofar war was one of the most important conflicts of the 20th century, as the victors could expect to control the Strait of Hormuz and the flow of oil.”  The British made sure their man won.

Public mention of greater British military involvement in foreign theatres can be found, though they rarely make front page acts.  The business of projecting such power, especially in the Britannic model, should be careful, considered, even gnomic.  Britain, for instance, is rallying to the US-led call to contain the Yellow Peril in the Asia Pacific, a nice reminder to Beijing that old imperial misdeeds should never be a bar to repetition.  The head of the British Army, General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, spoke in September about there being “a market for a more persistent presence from the British Army (in Asia).  It’s an area that saw a much more consistent Army presence in the Eighties, but with 9/11 we naturally receded from it.”  The time had come “to redress that imbalance”.

The UK Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, prefers to be more enigmatic about the “future of Global Britain.”  To deal with an “ever more complex and dynamic strategic context,” he suggests the “Integrated Operating Concept”.  Britain had to “compete below the threshold of war in order to deter war, and to prevent one’s adversaries from achieving their objectives in fait accompli strategies.”

Gone are the old thuggeries of imperial snatch and grab; evident are matters of flexibility in terms of competition. “Competing involves a campaign posture that includes continuous operating on our terms and in places of our choosing.”  This entails a thought process involving “several dimensions to escalate and deescalate up and down multiple ladders – as if it were a spider’s web.”  The general attempts to illustrate this gibberish with the following example:  “One might actively constrain in the cyber domain to protect critical national infrastructure in the maritime Domain.”

In 2017, there were already more than just murmurings from Johnson, then Foreign Secretary, and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, that a greater British presence in the Asia-Pacific was warranted.  Fallon was keen to stress the reasons for deeper involvement, listing them to a group of Australian journalists. “The tensions have been rising in the region, not just from the tests by North Korea but also escalating tension in the South China Sea with the building program that’s gone there on the islands and the need to keep those routes open.”

With such chatter about the China threat you could be forgiven for believing that British presence in the Asia-Pacific was minimal.  But that would ignore, for instance, the naval logistics base at Singapore’s Sembawang Wharf, permanently staffed by eight British military personnel with an eye on the busy Malacca Strait.  A more substantial presence can also be found in the Sultanate of Brunei, comprising an infantry battalion of Gurkhas and an Army Air Corps Flight of Bell 212 helicopters.  The MOD is particularly keen on the surroundings, as they offer “tropical climate and terrain … well suited to jungle training”.

Over the next four years, the UK military can expect to get an extra £16.5 billion – a 10% increase in funding and a fond salute to militarists.  “I have decided that the era of cutting our defence budget must end, and ends now,” declared Johnson.  “Our plans will safeguard hundreds of thousands of jobs in the defence industry, protecting livelihoods across the UK and keeping the British people safe.”

The prime minister was hoping to make that announcement accompanied by the “Integrated Defence and Security Review” long championed by his now departed chief special adviser, Dominic Cummings.  Cummings might have been ejected from the gladiatorial arena of Downing Street politics, but the ideas in the Review are unlikely to buck old imperial trends.  At the very least, there will be a promise of more military bases to reflect a posture General Carter describes rather obscurely as “engaged and forward deployed”.

This article was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2020 at 2:19am and is filed under Asia, Boris Johnson, China, Empire, Middle East, Militarism, South China Sea, Taiwan, UK Military, UK Military Bases, United Kingdom.

Simply put, Beijing has long realized that, in order for it to sustain its economic growth unhindered, it has to develop the necessary tools to protect itself, its allies and their combined interests.

The need for a strong China is not a novel idea developed by the current Chinese President, Xi Jinping. It goes back many decades, spanning various nationalist movements and, ultimately, the Communist Party. What sets Xi apart from the rest is that, thanks to the unprecedented global influence acquired by Beijing during his incumbency (2013 – present), China is now left with no alternative but to match its ‘economic miracle’ with a military one.

US President, Donald Trump, made the trade deficit between his country and China a cornerstone in his foreign policy agenda even before his rise to power. That aside, it is the military deficit that concerns China most. While world media often focuses on China’s military encroachment in the South China Sea – often dubbed ‘provocations’ – little is dedicated to the massive US military presence all around China.

Tens of thousands of US troops are stationed in the West Pacific and in other regions, creating an encirclement, all with the aim of cutting off the possibility of any Chinese strategic expansion. Numerous US military bases dot the Asia-Pacific map, stationed mostly in Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Guam and Australia.

In response to China’s military maneuvers in the South China Sea, the US composed the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which is raising the prospects of military confrontations between the US and its Asian allies on the one hand, and China, on the other. US military expansion soon followed. On September 8, the Wall Street Journal, citing US officials, reported that the Republic of Palau has “asked the Pentagon to build ports, bases and airfields on the island nation”.

It is obvious that the Pentagon would not base such a consequential decision on the wishes of a tiny republic like Palau. The immensely strategic value of the country – spread over hundreds of islands in the Philippine Sea, with close ties to China’s arch-enemy and US ally, Taiwan – makes Palau a perfect choice for yet more US military bases.

This is not new. The rise of China, and its clear intentions to expand its military influence in the Pacific, has irked the US for years. Barack Obama’s administration’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ in 2012 was the genesis of the new American belief regarding the imminent challenges awaiting it in that region. The National Defense Strategy of two years ago was a further confirmation that the focal point of US foreign policy has largely shifted away from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific.

The compromising language that became a feature in China’s foreign policy throughout the 1980s and 90s is now being supplanted by a different discourse, one of political resolve and unprecedented military ambitions. In his speech at the historic October 2017 Communist Party Congress in Beijing, Xi declared the dawn of a “new era”, one where development and strength must synchronize.

“The Chinese nation … has stood up, grown rich, and become strong. It will be an era that sees China moving closer to center stage and making greater contributions to mankind,” he said.

Since then, Xi has tirelessly aimed to strike the balance between strength, bravery and victory with that of progress, ingenuity and wealth. For the “China dream” to be realized, “it will take more than drum beating and gong clanging to get there.”

The Chinese quest to reach its coveted ‘center stage’ has already been launched in earnest. In the economic realm, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is in full swing. Announced by Xi in 2013, the giant plan hopes to outweigh all traditional trade channels that have been put in place over the course of many years. When completed, the China-led infrastructure network will establish connectivity throughout Asia as well as the Middle East and Africa. If successful, a future China could, once more, become a world-leading hub of trade, technological renovation and, of course, political power.

In contrast, the US has solidified its global dominance largely based on military might. This is why the US counter-strategy is now intently focused on military expansionism. On October 6, US Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, said that his country’s navy requires more than 500 ships to counter China. Of this number, 355 traditional warfighting vessels are needed by 2035. This future fleet is dubbed “Battle Force 2045”.

Particularly intriguing in Esper’s recent announcement is the claim that by 2045, “Beijing wants to achieve parity with the United States Navy, if not exceed our capabilities in certain areas and to offset our overmatch in several others.” In fact, Beijing already has. China currently has the largest navy in the world and, according to the Pentagon, “is the top ship-producing nation in the world by tonnage.”

By China’s own calculations, Beijing does not need 25 more years to fully change the rules of the game. On October 15, President Xi told the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Marine Corps to focus their energy on “preparing for war”. Many interpretations have already been made of his statement, some linking it to the US, others to Taiwan, to various South China Sea conflicts and even to India. Regardless, Xi’s language indicates that China does not ‘just want to do business’, but is ready to do much more to protect its interests, even if this means an all-out war.

China’s foreign policy under Xi seems to portray an entirely different country. China now wields enough wealth, economic strategic influence – thus political power – to start the process of strategic maneuvering, not only in the Asia Pacific but in the Middle East and Africa, as well.

Another central piece in Xi’s strategy is to copy the American model and to rebrand China as a stately power, a defender of international law and against global crises. The US’ growing isolationism and failed leadership at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic have been Xi’s perfect opportunity for this new China debut.

The world is changing before our eyes. In the coming years, we are likely to, once more, speak of a bipolar – or, possibly, tri-polar — world, one in which Washington and its allies no longer shape the world for their benefit. In some way, China is well on its way to reclaim its new status.

This article was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2020 at 2:30pm and is filed under Asia, Barack Obama, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China, Donald Trump, Economic Warfare, Economy/Economics, Imperialism, Middle East, Militarism, Philippines, President Xi Jinping, South China Sea, Taiwan, Trade, United States, US Military, US Military Bases, War.