The Shangri-La Dialogue concluded last weekend in Singapore was marked by sharp differences between Washington, Tokyo, and Beijing over the South China Sea.
Comments from White House spokesman Sean Spicer on the South China Sea seem to have riled the Chinese and confused others who follow developments in the region.
On Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work warned Beijing against declaring an exclusion zone in the South China Sea, calling any potential announcement as “destabilizing,” and vowing the United States would not recognize such a zone.
A Chinese vessel was accused of sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat near the disputed Paracel islands on September 29.
I had not given much thought to the flight plan of the airline I recently booked to go back to the U.S. from Vietnam, but recent events in the airspace over the South China Sea prompted an online search. As I discovered, my commercial flight will be flying not far from where a U.S. surveillance plane was warned on Wednesday to leave by a Chinese radar operator.
On Mischief Reef, in the South China Sea just off the coast of the Philippine island of Palawan, Chinese workers are busy dredging sand and creating an island on top of partially-submerged coral reefs.
Last Friday, Beijing reacted strongly to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to India’s disputed border area with China, to mark the 28th anniversary of the establishment of Arunachal Pradesh as an Indian state.
Lately, it seems China’s aggressive foreign policy stance toward territorial disputes in the South China Sea is backfiring, especially in Vietnam. Last month, Vietnamese officials offered India two oil-exploration blocks in the disputed South China Sea waters, which Vietnam calls the East Sea, which drew strong condemnation from Beijing. In turn, India promised to sell […]
Popular from Press
