China Foreign Ministry News

China's coastguard said it had taken measures against Philippine vessels in disputed waters of the South China Sea on Saturday, while the Philippines decried the moves, including the use of water cannons, as "irresponsible and provocative".China's actions led to "significant damage" and injury to personnel on a civilian boat hired to resupply troops, the Philippine task force on the South China Sea said in a statement.The incident occurred in the Second Thomas Shoal and Spratly Islands waters, according to the Chinese coastguard.

The Philippines on Monday accused Chinese coastguard vessels of "intentionally" colliding with its vessels on a resupply mission in a disputed part of the South China Sea, as ties deteriorated between the Southeast Asian U.S. ally and Beijing.Both sides traded accusations after the latest incident on Sunday, which was the most serious yet in the waters around the disputed Second Thomas shoal, though no one was harmed.China said on Sunday that the Philippine boats "bumped dangerously" with the coastguard vessels and "Chinese fishing vessels" fishing there.On Monday…

China's foreign ministry on Monday called for an "objective, fair and professional" investigation into damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline, adding that a Chinese vessel was sailing "normally" in the relevant waters.China and Finland have started communication over the matter, and China hopes that relevant parties can find out the truth as soon as possible, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular press briefing.An investigation into the pipeline damage is currently focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI

On a windswept island 50 miles north of Seattle sits a U.S. Navy monitoring station. For years, it was kept busy tracking whale movements and measuring rising sea temperatures. Last October, the Navy gave the unit a new name that better reflects its current mission: Theater Undersea Surveillance Command.The renaming of the spy station at the Whidbey Island naval base is a nod to a much larger U.S. military project, according to three people with direct knowledge of the plans:…

On Feb. 10 last year, the cable ship CS Dependable appeared off the coast of the island of Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean atoll that’s home to a discreet U.S. naval base.Over the next month, the ship’s crew covertly laid an underwater fiber-optic cable to the military base, an operation code-named “Big Wave,” according to four people with direct knowledge of the mission, as well as a Reuters analysis of satellite imagery and ship tracking data.The new super-fast internet link to Diego Garcia, which has not previously been reported, will boost U.S. military readiness in the Indian Ocean, a region where China has expanded its naval influence over the last decade.The CS Dependable is owned by SubCom…

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for agreement to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at crunch shipping talks in London this week and urged decarbonisation efforts to move faster.China, however, is pushing back on the targets, according to a diplomatic note issued by Beijing.Shipping, which transports around 90% of world trade and accounts for nearly 3% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, is facing calls from environmentalists and investors to deliver more concrete action…

A Chinese research ship and five escort vessels were in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) on Friday, close to gas blocks operated by Russian firms in the South China Sea, a day after Vietnam urged the ships to leave.The Chinese vessel Xiang Yang Hong 10 began operating in Vietnam's EEZ on May 7, representing the most significant incursion since 2019, according to Ray Powell, who leads Stanford University's Project Myoushu on the South China Sea.He said China's conduct and Vietnam's reaction were a "worrying escalation."China claims most of the energy-rich waters of the South China Sea, including areas that are within Vietnam's EEZ. The 2019 standoff lasted for more than three months and largely targeted a block then operated by Russian state oil firm Rosneft ROSN.MM.

The United States urged China on Saturday to stop harassing Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, pledging to stand with the Philippines after another maritime confrontation between the two Asian countries."We call upon Beijing to desist from its provocative and unsafe conduct," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.The Philippines on Friday accused China's coast guard of "aggressive tactics" following an incident during a Philippine coast guard patrol close to the Philippines-held Second Thomas Shoal…

China will ban vessels from an area near Taiwan on Sunday because of the possibility of falling rocket debris, its maritime safety agency said on Thursday, as Japan sought details from Beijing on a reported no-fly zone in the same location. China has not commented on the no-fly zone, but South Korea, which was also briefed on the plans, said it was due to a falling object related to a launch vehicle. The disruption comes during tension in the region over Chinese military exercises around Taiwan…

Iranian oil exports hit new highs in the last two months of 2022 and are making a strong start to 2023 despite U.S. sanctions, according to companies that track the flows, on higher shipments to China and Venezuela.Tehran's oil exports have been limited since former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 exited a 2015 nuclear accord and reimposed sanctions aimed at curbing oil exports and the associated revenue to Iran's government.Exports have risen during the term of his successor President Joe Biden, who had sought to revive the nuclear deal, and hit the highest since 2019 on some estimates.

At least four Chinese-owned supertankers are shipping Russian Urals crude to China, according to trading sources and tracking data, as Moscow seeks vessels for exports after a G7 oil price cap restricted the use of Western cargo services and insurance.China, the world's top oil importer, has continued buying Russian oil despite Western sanctions, after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping launched what they called a no-limit partnership before the war in Ukraine.The sources said a fifth supertanker…

The U.S has "no right" to interfere in Chinese cooperation with Germany, China's foreign ministry said Thursday, after Washington cautioned against Beijing getting a controlling stake in Hamburg's port terminal. U.S. interference is symptomatic of its practice of coercive diplomacy, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters at a daily briefing in Beijing. "Pragmatic cooperation between China and Germany is a matter for the two sovereign countries, the United States should not attack it without reason and has no right to meddle and interfere…

China has entrusted a defense-focussed state firm to ship millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil despite U.S. sanctions, part of a deal to offset Caracas' billions of dollars of debt to Beijing, according to three sources and tanker tracking data. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) stopped carrying Venezuelan oil in August 2019 after Washington tightened sanctions on the South American exporter. But it continued to find its way to China via traders who rebranded the fuel as Malaysian, Reuters has reported.

The Taiwan Strait is an international waterway and Taiwan's government supports U.S. warships transiting it, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, rebuffing claims from China to exercise sovereignty over the strategic passage.The narrow strait has been a frequent source of military tension since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the communists, who established the People's Republic of China.In recent years U.S. warships…

Iranian oil exports have risen to more than 1 million barrels per day for the first time in almost three years, based on estimates from companies that track the flows, reflecting increased shipments to China.Tehran's oil exports have been limited since former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 exited a 2015 nuclear accord and reimposed sanctions aimed at curbing oil exports and the associated revenue to Iran's government.Iran has kept some exports flowing despite sanctions as intermediaries find ways to disguise the origin of the imports.

China's military said it "drove away" a U.S. warship that illegally entered Chinese waters near the Paracel Islands on Monday, the anniversary of an international court ruling that held Beijing had no claim over the South China Sea.The USS Benfold entered the waters without China's approval, seriously violating its sovereignty and undermining the stability of the South China Sea, the southern theatre command of the People's Liberation Army said."We urge the United States to immediately stop such provocative actions…

Japan will release more than 1 million tonnes of contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear station into the sea, the government said on Tuesday, a move opposed by neighbors including China, which called it "extremely irresponsible."The first release of water will take place in about two years, giving plant operator Tokyo Electric Power time to begin filtering the water to remove harmful isotopes, build infrastructure and acquire regulatory approval.Japan has argued…

China said on Wednesday it was seeking details about 25 of its nationals who were among 61 crew on two supertankers seized by Indonesia on suspicion of illegally transferring oil.Indonesia said on Sunday it had seized the vessels after they were detected making the transfer from Iranian-flagged MT Horse to Panamanian-flagged MT Freya, causing an oil spill.The Indonesian authorities said the seizure was not related to U.S. sanctions, which Washington imposed in a bid to shut off Iran’s oil exports in a dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program.The MT Horse, owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company, and MT Freya, managed by Shanghai Future Ship Management Co…

The United States often sends ships and aircraft into the South China Sea to “flex its muscles” and this is not good for peace, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday, after a U.S. aircraft carrier group sailed into the disputed waterway.The strategic South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade flows each year, has long been a focus of contention between Beijing and Washington, with China particularly angered by U.S. military activity there.The U.S. carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt and accompanied by three warships…

On a windy August afternoon in 2017, Akitsinnguaq Ina Olsen was relaxing in the old harbor of Nuuk, Greenland's capital, when a Chinese icebreaker sailed unannounced into the Arctic island's territorial waters."I saw it by chance," Olsen, 50, told Reuters. "My first thought was: 'They're already here!' They're pretty cheeky, those Chinese."She pulled out her phone and took a picture of the 167-meter long Chinese icebreaker Xue Long (Snow Dragon), before it turned around and disappeared.The…

The Philippines has lodged a diplomatic protest over what it said was China’s illegal confiscation of fish aggregating devices from Filipino fisherman in a disputed lagoon held by Beijing in the South China Sea.The Philippine foreign ministry said the incident happened three months ago at the Scarborough Shoal, a prime fishing site seized by Beijing in 2012 after a standoff that prompted an unprecedented international legal challenge by Manila.In a statement late on Thursday, it gave no other details about that incident…

Two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers are conducting exercises in the contested South China Sea within sight of Chinese naval vessels spotted near the flotilla, the commander of one of the carriers, the USS Nimitz, told Reuters on Monday.“They have seen us and we have seen them,” Rear Admiral James Kirk said in a telephone interview from the Nimitz, which has been conducting flight drills in the waterway with the Seventh Fleet carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, that began on the U.S. Independence Day holiday of July 4.The U.S.

Last year, China replaced the United States as the No. 1 importer of oil from Venezuela, yet another front in the heated rivalry between Washington and Beijing.The United States had imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company as part of a bid to topple that country’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro. U.S. refineries stopped buying Venezuelan crude. Caracas’ ally China, long a major customer, suddenly found itself the top purchaser. Through the first six months of 2019, it imported an average of 350,000 barrels per day of crude from Venezuela.But in August, Washington tightened its sanctions on Venezuela, warning that any foreign entity that continued to do business with the South American country’s government could find itself subject to sanctions.