South China Sea Dispute
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China’s Grand-Strategy Challenge: Creating Its Own Islands in the South China Sea
Artificial Islands, China, Militarization, Philippines, Reclamation, South China Sea Dispute, StrategySatellite images analyzed by defense intelligence magazine IHS Jane’s show that China is reclaiming on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands a piece of land that bears the shape of a 3000-meter airfield and a harbor large enough to receive tankers and major warships. This is not the first, but the latest in a […]
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Time for Japan to Get Its Own Nuclear Weapons?
ADIZ, Air Defense Identification Zone, China, Diaoyu, East China Sea, Japan, Militarization, Nuclear Weapons, Senkaku, South China Sea Dispute, WarIs it time for Japan to consider acquiring nuclear weapons? What about America’s nuclear forces? Are they the right size for today’s challenging international landscape? TNI’s Executive Editor, Harry J. Kazianis, spoke with Christine M. Leah, a postdoctoral Grand Strategy Fellow at Yale University to explore these topics and more. Also, please see Ms. Leah’s […]
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Russian Sanctions, China, and the Arctic
Russian Arctic offshore energy efforts are in a period of unwelcome pause, and the flight of Western companies in the face of sanctions imposed by their home countries has left the future of these efforts up in the air. But this state is unlikely to last for long. Western firms have left incredible opportunity in […]
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2015: Will China continue to probe its neighbors?
ADIZ, Air Defense Identification Zone, China, Drones, Japan, Probes, South China Sea Dispute, South KoreaA nudge by air in 2013. A probe by sea in 2014. Will China take a crack on land in 2015? For the sake of world peace, let’s hope not. However, China’s nudge and probe record, especially over the last two years, should worry diplomats and alert headline writers. In 2013, China tested Japanese and […]
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China and Vietnam Eschew Megaphone Diplomacy
It is now clear that the August 26-27, 2014 visit to Beijing by Le Hong Anh, special envoy of the Secretary General of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP), marked an important inflection point in Sino-Vietnamese relations following the HD 981 oil rig crisis of the preceding three months. Anh, who is also a senior member […]
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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 […]