December 2014
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Vietnam a Growing Threat to Taiwan’s South China Sea Claims: Report
Vietnam’s military expansion on nearby islands could threaten Taiwan’s lone outpost in the South China Sea, according to a new report submitted to Taiwan’s Control Yuan. The report, published by the Ministry of National Defense, noted that Vietnam’s deployment of mobile missiles and artillery guns on island bases could pose a threat to Taiwan’s military […]
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Putting limits on the Law of the Sea
The U.S. State Department’s legal study addresses this Chinese argument. “Had the drafters of the LOS (law of the sea) Convention intended to permit historic claims of one State to override the expressly stated rights of other States, the Convention would have reflected this intention in its text,” the study, called “Limits in the Seas,” […]
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Wary of Japan’s new defense minister, China calls for peace
ADIZ, Air Defense Identification Zone, China, Diplomatic Relations, Japan, Militarization, Shinzo Abe, South China Sea DisputeBEIJING: China has advised Japan to stay on the ” path of peace”. The advice comes after newly elected prime minister Shinzo Abe picked a pro-militarization politician, Gen Nakatani, as the new defence minister. “It is our position that whoever serves as the defence minister of Japan, the Japanese side should follow the path of […]
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Expert unmasks China strategy of ‘creeping expansion’
Analysis, China, India, Japan, Mishief Reef, Philippines, Scarborough Shoal, South China Sea Dispute, Strategy, USA, VietnamA prominent global security scholar has unmasked China’s “grand strategy” of gaining control of the Asia Pacific Region by “creeping expansion” rather than waging major battles. Dr. Alexander L. Vuving, an associate professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies based in Honolulu, Hawaii, writes in an essay posted by Commentators.com that China is creating […]
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Law and realpolitik in the South China Sea
China’s rejection of the international process represented by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague is both a missed opportunity and a disappointing corollary to its intransigence on the South China Sea dispute. Beijing’s visceral opposition to third-party arbitration is based on the suspicion that the process is a means of exerting political pressure […]
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The Fog of Law: China’s Great South China Sea Dilemma
Arbitration, China, Lawfare, Military Conflict, Philippines, Position Paper, South China Sea Dispute, UNCLOSRecent months have witnessed an impressive Chinese diplomatic blitzkrieg, with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang feverishly courting friends and foes alike, proposing ambitious trading agreements and acquiescing to various confidence building measures (CBMS) aimed at de-escalating geopolitical tensions in the region. But China’s intensifying legal battle with the Philippines has injected new uncertainties […]
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Asia’s military budgets surge as armies go high-tech
SYDNEY — On two recent occasions, a pair of Sukhoi Su-30 fighters have taken off from their base near the old Indonesian trading port of Makassar and flown far across the Indonesian archipelago to intercept unidentified aircraft. One of the mystery planes, a light aircraft being ferried from Darwin in northern Australia to its new […]
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International Law and the South China Sea
China’s position paper published on December 7, 2014 is one of the rare documents in which Beijing officially expressed its opinions on the issues in the South China Sea as well as on the arbitration proceedings that the Philippines initiated at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in January 2013. It seems that the motivation was […]
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Beijing’s South China Sea objective is clear: To extend control
Within China’s bureaucratic system, sometimes it is in an agency’s interest to compete with others, rather than coordinate, in order to advance its own bureaucratic power and receive more funding. Linda Jakobson’s recent Lowy Report, China’s Unpredictable Maritime Security Actors, highlights this phenomenon between maritime agencies. Such a bureaucratic shortfall could explain to some degree […]
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Law and realpolitik in the South China Sea
China’s rejection of the international process represented by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague is both a missed opportunity and a disappointing corollary to its intransigence on the South China Sea dispute. Beijing’s visceral opposition to third-party arbitration is based on the suspicion that the process is a means of exerting political pressure on […]