South China Sea

India signed a defense pact with Vietnam on Wednesday, pledging to “significantly increase the scope and scale” of their military coordination over the coming decade.

China on Wednesday hailed its “iron-clad partnership” with Cambodia and broke ground on a joint project to expand the Ream Naval Base.

A Chinese fighter jet challenged an Australian reconnaissance plane last month over the South China Sea, flying close by before releasing flares and bundles of chaff that entered at least one of its target’s engines causing a return to base.

China’s military deployed its “most powerful bombers” to conduct drills near Taiwan on Wednesday just 48 hours before U.S. President Joe Biden embarked on a six-day East Asia tour on Friday in what observers believe may have been a show of defiance against Washington’s support of Taipei’s sovereignty, China’s state-run Global Times reported on Thursday.

Recent satellite images appear to suggest that China’s military has been practicing missile strikes on mock-ups of ships and targets resembling those operated by the Taiwanese and U.S. militaries in Taiwan and in the U.S. territory of Guam, respectively, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Thursday.

China’s military on Friday staged its second-largest incursion into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) this year, ordering 18 warplanes to fly through the special zone, the Taipei Times reported on Saturday.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) recently began deploying its most powerful stealth fighter jet, the J-20, to patrol the disputed East China Sea and South China Sea as part of “routine training sessions,” China’s state-run Global Times reported on Wednesday.

U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. John C. Aquilino told the Associated Press in an interview published on Sunday that China had fully militarized three artificial islands built in the territory of the Philippines as part of “the largest military buildup since World War II.”

The Philippine Foreign Ministry summoned China’s ambassador to Manila on Monday over the “illegal intrusion and lingering presence” of a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessel in Philippine waters near the Sulu Sea over a three-day period from January 29 through February 1.

Vietnam has banned a new Hollywood film starring Tom Holland over scenes with a map showing Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea.

The Navy recovered an F-35C Lightning II jet from the South China Sea that crashed on the USS Carl Vinson and landed in the water in January.

Leaked video shows an F-35C Lightning II crash on an aircraft carrier and plunge into the South China Sea, a Navy spokesman confirmed Monday.

The U.S. Navy was moving swiftly on Wednesday to begin full recovery operations of an F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter lost overboard after a “landing mishap” on the deck of USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) in the South China Sea.

The U.S. Navy lost a F35C Lightning II combat jet Monday after it crash landed while conducting routine flight operations in the South China Sea.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) sent a fleet of 39 aircraft into the southwest corner of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Sunday, Taiwan News reported, noting that the incursion marked the highest number of PLAAF planes to enter Taiwan’s ADIZ in a single day since October 2021.

Philippine Sen. Manny Pacquiao would “assert” Manila’s territorial rights in the South China Sea before the United Nations (U.N.) if elected president of the Philippines in 2022, Pacquiao’s vice-presidential running mate, Lito Atienza, told reporters on Monday.

Three Chinese Coast Guard vessels on Tuesday blocked two Philippines Navy boats from supplying materials to Philippine sailors stationed at a maritime outpost on Ayungin Shoal, an atoll located within Manila’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea, the Philippine Star reported Thursday.

Philippine senator and retired boxing legend Manny Pacquiao vowed Thursday to ensure that China does not “abuse” or “bully” the Philippines if he is elected president of the country next year, the Philippine Star reported Friday.

Viewers in the Philippines reported on Monday that they could no longer access at least two episodes of the Australian TV series Pine Gap after Manila demanded Netflix remove them over the depiction of false Chinese territorial claims.

Boxer-turned-politician Manny Pacquiao, who recently retired from the ring to run for the Philippine presidency in 2022, said Thursday he would not allow his country to “be bullied” by Beijing in the South China Sea if elected president, ABS-CBN reported.

China on Monday accused the U.S. of purposefully delaying the release of information detailing a mysterious collision by one of its nuclear submarines with an unknown object in the South China Sea on October 2, claiming Washington seeks to “cover up” the incident, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported Wednesday.

The USS Connecticut, a Seawolf-class fast attack submarine, struck an unidentified underwater object in the South China Sea on Saturday. The U.S. Navy confirmed the incident on Thursday and said there were several injuries, none of them life-threatening.

Kuala Lumpur summoned China’s ambassador to Malaysia on Monday to protest a recent violation of its South China Sea maritime territory by Chinese vessels off the coast of Borneo.

The UK continues to strengthen bonds with allies with a rare example of “quad carrier operations” on China’s doorstep. 

President Joe Biden’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday was remarkably conciliatory toward China, and included a brief but bold outreach to Iran for restoring the JCPOA nuclear deal. Both China and Iran quickly slapped Biden’s olive branches aside, pushing for nothing less than Biden’s complete submission to their demands.

France has pulled out of a planned defence summit with Britain amid an ongoing row between Paris, London, Canberra, and Washington D.C. over submarines.

The French government is seething over Australia’s decision to drop a troubled multi-billion French submarine deal in favour of collaboration with Britain and America, describing it as “treason”. 

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – France would have known Australia had “deep and grave concerns” that a submarine fleet the French were building would not meet Australian needs, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Sunday after the contract’s cancellation set off a diplomatic crisis.

Japan is committed to providing a “necessary response” to China if it continues to ramp up its military aggression toward Taiwan and spark a legitimate conflict, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told CNN on Thursday.

Australia’s next submarine fleet will be nuclear-powered under an audacious plan revealed Wednesday that will see Canberra end a $90 billion program to build 12 French-designed boats.

China’s state-run Global Times on Monday had some fun at the expense of Vice President Kamala Harris, mocking her for flying to Singapore in an allegedly doomed effort to rally Asian powers against mighty China while her administration presides over a humiliating debacle in Afghanistan.

The U.S. State Department announced on Wednesday that Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will visit China on July 25 and 26.

The United Kingdom has the right to sail its latest aircraft carrier anywhere in the world international law permits and will do so, it said.

Hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels illegally occupying the Philippines’ Spratly Islands are allegedly dumping vast amounts of human waste into the surrounding South China Sea causing an ecological “catastrophe” that threatens the health of local marine ecosystems and fishing stocks, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, while speaking at the Heritage Foundation’s annual B.C. Lee lecture on international affairs on Wednesday, took aim at the Biden-Harris administration for already “rolling over” for “Communist China.”

The U.S.-based streaming platform Netflix removed an Australian television show from its Vietnamese service after the Vietnamese government complained that a South China Sea map depicted in the series violated Vietnamese sovereignty, the Hanoi Times reported on Friday.

The Taiwanese Defense Ministry reported the largest incursion of Chinese warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) to date on Tuesday.

Chinese officials and state media boiled with outrage Tuesday over a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) statement describing China as an “assertive and authoritarian power.”

China’s state-run Global Times on Monday heaped scorn upon the tepid statement by the Group of Seven (G7) nations against China’s human rights abuses and strategic aggression, judging it barely provocative enough to be insulting, but not forceful enough to disturb Beijing’s agenda.

A discussion at the Wikipedia Reddit community yesterday noted that Google searches asking if China owns the disputed South China Sea prominently featured a result from the online encyclopedia parroting the Chinese government position that it “enjoys indisputable sovereignty” over the sea. Reddit users noted the line appeared to be taken from a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement quoted in the article, a fact not included in the Google snippet. The line was removed after the reddit discussion brought it to attention.