Analysis
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The World Has China Wrong, Says Top Pentagon Adviser
Military leaders in China are known for their outlandish plots. Due to the nature of their strange proposals, which are often coupled with highly aggressive undertones, many China experts write their claims off as little more than internal propaganda to rally the Chinese people. According to Michael Pillsbury, a long-time adviser to the Pentagon, the […]
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Why China will never be Asia’s dominant power
China may be Asia’s economic powerhouse but it won’t become the region’s dominant power, according to a new report. “In examining the factors that go towards the development of Chinese national power-and its ability to use it to achieve national objectives-predictions about a Chinese superpower with the ability to dominate Asia would be premature, if […]
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Your rules or mine?
Analysis, ASEAN, China, Code of Conduct, Economics, EEZ, Military Conflict, South China Sea Dispute, UNCLOS, USS CowpensCOMMUTERS BETWEEN MARIN COUNTY and San Francisco in northern California are getting used to a new spectacle during rush hour. Vast, ungainly container ships, bearing China’s flag and name, plough along under the glorious Golden Gate Bridge. They are bringing goods into the Port of Oakland—and taking back America’s trade deficit. Any pleasure yachts zipping […]
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Beijing’s ingenious strategy to control China Sea: build islands
Having missed out on the prime real estate, China is constructing its own What do you do when all the seats are taken? The Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia control real islands in the South China Sea. “China came very late to this party and missed out on all the good real estate,” writes the […]
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South China Sea: One Confrontation, Three Legal Questions – Analysis
“Is Vietnam or China legally right in this confrontation?”: According to UNCLOS as has been interpreted by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the answer is definitely Vietnam, regardless of the answers to the first two questions. After two and a half months of confrontation with Vietnam, on 15/7/2014 China withdrew the billion-dollar oil rig HY-981 […]
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South China Sea Disputes: Chinese Historical Evidence Found Wanting – Analysis
In response to Bill Hayton’s commentary The Paracels: Historical Evidence Must Be Examined on Eurasia Review, Professor Li Dexia and Researcher Tan Keng Tat published their commentary South China Sea Disputes: China Has Evidence Of Historical Claims – Analysis. These two authors asserted that to properly address Hayton’s issue would require a monograph and pointed […]
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China-ASEAN Relations: Hamstrung Soft Power In South China Sea? – Analysis
China’s multi-faceted relations with Southeast Asia is often hamstrung by Beijing’s hard line position on territorial claims in the South China Sea. Is it possible to isolate the maritime disputes from other aspects of the Sino-Southeast Asian relationship? By Lim Kheng Swe CHINA AND Southeast Asia are more intertwined than ever. Trade between these two […]
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China testing southern waters for new world order
ADIZ, Air Defense Identification Zone, Analysis, China, East China Sea, Japan, Shinzo Abe, South China Sea Dispute, USABEIJING — If you want an insight into Chinese foreign policy, just look at its maps. Since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012, state-owned bookshops have begun selling vertical oblong maps that look rather different from previous ones. The new maps put the South China Sea in the center, rather than showing it in […]
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Xisha (Paracel) Islands: The Inconvenient Truth – Analysis
The Xisha Islands (Paracel in English), consist of a group of about 30 islands, reefs, banks and cays in the South China Sea, with a maritime area of approximately 15,000 square kilometres. It is located about 180 nautical miles southeast of Hainan Island and about 260 nautical miles from the coast of Vietnam. There are […]
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What China wants
Analysis, China, Diplomatic Relations, Domestic Policy, Economics, Foreign Policy, History, Military Upgrade, Oil Rig, Philippines, South China Sea Dispute, USA, VietnamMATTHEW BOULTON, James Watt’s partner in the development of the steam engine and one of the 18th century’s greatest industrialists, was in no doubt about the importance of Britain’s first embassy to the court of the Chinese emperor. “I conceive”, he wrote to James Cobb, secretary of the East India Company, “the present occasion to […]