News
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Playing Chicken in the South China Sea
By the Pentagon’s account, two Chinese fighter jets performed an “unsafe” maneuver this week by flying within 50 feet of an American surveillance plane over the South China Sea. That’s not much more than a hairbreadth, aeronautically speaking, and a collision could have been catastrophic — to the crews and to the already fragile diplomatic […]
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US, China closer on South China Sea issues than they appear
When big countries reach agreement, small countries may pay the price, says Ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan in a speech he delivered in Tokyo this week. The excerpt below includes notes prepared in anticipation of questions. President Xi Jinping has termed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) role as leading the “Great Rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation after […]
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Could A Lighthouse Have Prevented South China Sea’s Latest Flashpoint?
After U.S. bases in the Philippines closed in the early ’90s, a lighthouse on Scarborough Shoal was meant to help protect the country from regional aggression. But that project was never completed. RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: Scarborough Shoal is little more than a bump in the South China Sea. China is eyeing it for an air […]
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South China Sea: Is China upping the stakes?
(CNN)Two Chinese J-11 fighter aircraft carried out an “unsafe” intercept of a United States EP-3E “Aires II” reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the South China Sea, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. During the incident, which took place Tuesday, the fighters reportedly came within 50 feet (15 meters) of the Navy plane. Flying […]
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America’s instructive humiliation in the South China Sea: Spengler
“Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should: We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good,” wrote Rudyard Kipling in 1902 after the Boers humiliated the British Army in the first round of the Boer War. America should express the same gratitude towards China, which […]
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United States to remain world’s Number 1 power ‘for a fairly long time’: Beijing
The United States will remain the world’s leading power for a long time, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday, but he stressed global affairs should not be dominated by one country. Wang made the remarks during an interview with the Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera, ahead of the seventh ministerial conference of the China-Arab States […]
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Duterte, the Americans, the Chinese, and the communists
President Duterte has three main priorities: one, kill drug lords and those guilty of heinous crimes like rape and murder; two, extricate something practical and profitable from the Philippine territorial claim in the West Philippine Sea; and three, share power with the communist rebels to bring to an end the longest communist insurgency in the […]
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China wants TT backing on South China Sea
AS PART of its ongoing international blitz to lobby countries to back it, China yesterday called on Trinidad and Tobago to “stand with righteousness” and support its claim to territories in the South China Sea. In a statement published in the print media yesterday, China’s Ambassador Huang Xingyuan argued the issue – which is likely […]
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China’s Giant Spy Drone Stalks Foreign Warships
The simmering South China Sea dispute is getting closer to boiling over—with Beijing’s fighter jets buzzing U.S. spy planes and now sightings of a high-tech new surveillance drone. China has dramatically escalated its military expansion into the disputed waters and airspace of the South China Sea. Deploying ships, jet fighters, and, reportedly, a high-tech surveillance […]
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Will the United States Soon End the Arms Embargo on Vietnam?
This weekend, President Obama will travel to Vietnam, making the third U.S. presidential visit to the country since the end of the Vietnam War. Obama’s trip, which will also include a stop in Japan, will encompass several priorities. He will try to reassure allies that the United States remains committed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, even […]
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Taiwan’s Tsai takes office as hostile Beijing looks on
(UPDATED) TAIPEI–Taiwan swore in Tsai Ing-wen as its first female president Friday ahead of a grand ceremony celebrating the island’s unique identity, likely to raise hackles in Beijing as ties with China rapidly cool. Tsai took office after winning a landslide victory in January to defeat the ruling Kuomintang, ending an eight-year rapprochement with Beijing […]
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Cambodia Stuck in the Middle Over South China Sea
PHNOM PENH — On the thorny issue of Southeast Asia’s territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Cambodia finds itself caught in the middle. On one side, its fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) say the regional bloc should be central to dealing with the disputes. On the other, China—the world’s […]