Dean Yates News

The United States and India have held talks about conducting joint naval patrols that a U.S. defense official said could include the disputed South China Sea, a move that would likely anger Beijing, which claims most of the waterway. Washington wants its regional allies and other Asian nations to take a more united stance against China over the South China Sea, where tensions have spiked in the wake of Beijing's construction of seven man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago.

A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer sailed close to China's man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea on Tuesday, drawing an angry rebuke from Beijing, which said it warned and followed the American vessel. The patrol by the USS Lassen was the most significant U.S. challenge yet to the 12-nautical-mile territorial limits China asserts around the islands in the Spratly archipelago and could ratchet up tension in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. One U.S. defense official said the USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef.

Two huge explosions tore through an industrial area where toxic chemicals and gas were stored in the northeast Chinese port city of Tianjin, killing at least 50 people, including at least a dozen fire fighters, officials and state media said on Thursday. At least 700 people were injured, more than 71 seriously, the Tianjin government said on its Weibo microblog, and the official Xinhua news agency said two fires were still burning. Wednesday night's blasts, so large that they were seen by satellites in space, sent shockwaves through apartment blocks kilometres away in the port city of 15 million people. Internet videos showed fireballs shooting into the sky and the U.S. Geological Survey registered the blasts as seismic events.

China will soon complete some of its land reclamation on the Spratly islands in the disputed South China Sea, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, indicating that Beijing is close to setting up new outposts in the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. The Foreign Ministry did not identify which of the seven reefs undergoing reclamation would be finished soon. Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said their statement was already "quite detailed". China stepped up its creation of artificial islands last year, a move that has alarmed several countries in Asia and drawn growing criticism from Washington. There have been recent tensions between the Chinese navy and the U.S. military around the Spratlys.

When the U.S. navy sent a littoral combat ship on its first patrol of the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea during the past week, it was watching the skies as well. The USS Fort Worth, one of the most modern ships in the U.S. navy, dispatched a reconnaissance drone and a Seahawk helicopter to patrol the airspace, according to a little-noticed statement on the navy's website. While the navy didn't mention China's rapid land reclamation in the Spratlys, the ship's actions were a demonstration of U.S. capabilities in the event Beijing declares an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the area - a move experts and some U.S. military officials see as increasingly likely.

China on Thursday sketched out plans for the islands it is creating in the disputed South China Sea, saying they would be used for military defence as well as to provide civilian services that would benefit other countries. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news briefing that the reclamation and building work in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea was needed partly because of the risk of typhoons in an area with a lot of shipping that is far from land. "We are building shelters, aids for navigation, search and rescue as well as marine meteorological forecasting services, fishery services and other administrative services" for China and neighbouring countries, Hua said.

Budget constraints are jeopardising Malaysia's defence spending plans, which include replacing ageing fighter jets and beefing up its maritime capabilities, at a time when Beijing is growing more assertive in the disputed South China Sea. While Malaysia has traditionally played down any tensions with China over the contested waterway, it has long expressed concern about piracy and security along its land and coastal borders. More recently, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 after it flew unimpeded across the Malay Peninsula last year exposed gaps in the military's tracking of the skies. "We have a lot of areas to be concerned about.

Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo on Tuesday, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears. Indonesia AirAsia's Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic control early on Sunday during bad weather on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. The navy said 40 bodies had been recovered. The plane has yet to be found. "My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501," airline boss Tony Fernandes tweeted. "On behalf of AirAsia, my condolences to all.

China will come under the most concerted diplomatic pressure yet to rein in its assertive moves in the disputed South China Sea when the United States uses a regional security meeting this weekend to rally support for a freeze on provocative acts. The push by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the ASEAN Regional Forum marks a step up in Washington's involvement in the dispute, which has frayed regional ties as China acts more forcefully on its sweeping sovereignty claims. Kerry arrives in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw on Saturday, joining top diplomats from China, Russia, Japan, India, Australia, the European Union and Southeast Asia among others in Asia's highest-profile gathering so far this year.

Chinese energy giant CNOOC Group is studying the possibility of building a multibillion-dollar floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) vessel, as-yet untried technology that would likely be used to produce gas from the deep waters of the South China Sea. While the state-run company has made no public announcement, a pre-feasibility study was well under way, CNOOC and other industry officials said. CNOOC was already talking to global engineering firms about possible joint design of the vessel, two industry officials added.

China is sending four oil rigs into the South China Sea in a sign that Beijing its stepping up its exploration for oil and gas in the tense region, less than two months after it positioned a giant drilling platform in waters claimed by Vietnam. Coordinates posted on the website of China's Maritime Safety Administration showed the Nanhai number 2 and 5 rigs would be deployed roughly between southern China and the Pratas islands, which are occupied by Taiwan. The Nanhai 4 rig would be towed close to the Chinese coast. The agency, which did not say who owns the rigs, said all three would be in place by Aug. 12. Earlier this week, it gave coordinates for a fourth rig, the Nanhai 9, which would be positioned just outside Vietnam's exclusive economic zone by Friday.

Taiwan is building a $100 million port next to an airstrip on the lone island it occupies in the disputed South China Sea, a move that is drawing hardly any flak from the most assertive player in the bitterly contested waters - China. The reason, say military strategists, is that Itu Aba could one day be in China's hands should it ever take over Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province. While Itu Aba, also called Tai Ping, is small, no other disputed island has such sophisticated facilities. Its runway is the biggest of only two in the Spratly archipelago that straddles the South China Sea, and the island has its own fresh water source.

Several people appear to have survived in an air pocket of a capsized South Korean ferry, the father of one of the school children aboard the boat told a Reuters reporter accompanying families out to the scene of the disaster on Thursday. About 290 people are still missing out of 450 passengers on the Sewol ferry, which capsized in still-mysterious circumstances off the Korean peninsula on Wednesday in what could be the country's worst maritime accident in 20 years. Many of the passengers were school children from one high school on the outskirts of Seoul. "(The child) told me in the text message, 'I am alive, there are students alive, please save us quickly," the father said.

Philippine navy will soon return to a South China Sea island it lost to Vietnam 40 years ago to drink beer and play volleyball with Vietnamese sailors, symbolising how once-suspicious neighbours are cooperating in the face of China's assertiveness in disputed waters. Diplomats and experts describe the nascent partnership as part of a web of evolving relationships across Asia that are being driven by fear of China as well as doubts among some, especially in Japan, over the U.S. commitment to the region. When U.S. President Barack Obama visits Asia this month he will see signs that once-disparate nations are strategising for the future, even though he will likely seek to shore-up faith in America's "pivot" back to the region.

The Philippine navy will soon return to a South China Sea island it lost to Vietnam 40 years ago to drink beer and play volleyball with Vietnamese sailors, symbolizing how once-suspicious neighbors are cooperating in the face of China's assertiveness in disputed waters. Diplomats and experts describe the nascent partnership as part of a web of evolving relationships across Asia that are being driven by fear of China as well as doubts among some, especially in Japan, over the U.S. commitment to the region. When U.S. President Barack Obama visits Asia this month he will see signs that once-disparate nations are strategizing for the future, even though he will likely seek to shore-up faith in America's "pivot" back to the region.

From harassing Filipino fishing boats and monitoring oil exploration off Vietnam to playing cat-and-mouse with the Japanese coastguard, China's expanding fleet of civilian patrol vessels have become the enforcers in disputed Asian waters. The ships of the recently unified Chinese coastguard are a fixture around the disputed islands and shoals of the South and East China Seas. While the ships don't have the weaponry of military vessels, thus reducing the risk a confrontation could get out of control, they still represent a potent show of sovereignty.

The submerged reef would be easy to miss, under turquoise seas about 80 km (50 miles) off Malaysia's Borneo island state of Sarawak. But two Chinese naval exercises in less than a year around the James Shoal have shocked Malaysia and led to a significant shift in its approach to China's claims to the disputed South China Sea, senior diplomats told Reuters. The reef lies outside Malaysia's territorial waters but inside its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. The latest incident in January, in particular, prompted Malaysia to quietly step up cooperation with the Philippines and Vietnam, the two Southeast Asian nations most outspoken over China's moves in the region, in trying to tie Beijing to binding rules of conduct in the South China Sea, the diplomats said.

Pressure is mounting on China and Southeast Asia to agree a code of conduct to keep the peace in the disputed South China Sea, but Beijing is warning of a long road ahead. Only last week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged China and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to work out rules to ease tensions after a fresh Chinese campaign of assertiveness in the region. "The longer the process takes, the longer tensions will simmer and the greater the chance of a miscalculation by somebody that could trigger a conflict," Kerry said in Indonesia during a visit to Asia.