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Island Chain News

25 Sep 2023

Taiwan Expects to Deploy Two New Submarines by 2027

© Norman Chan / Adobe Stock

Taiwan hopes to deploy at least two new, domestically developed submarines by 2027, and possibly equip later models with missiles, to strengthen deterrence against the Chinese navy and protect key supply lines, the head of the program said.Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has made the indigenous sub program a key part of an ambitious project to modernise its armed forces as Beijing stages almost daily military exercises to assert its sovereignty.President Tsai Ing-wen…

17 Jun 2022

China Launches New Aircraft Carrier

(Photo: People's Liberation Army Navy)

China launched its third aircraft carrier on Friday, the Fujian, named after the province opposite self-ruled Taiwan, sending a statement of intent to rivals as it modernizes its military.President Xi Jinping has made overhauling the world's largest armed forces a central part of his agenda, seeking to project power well beyond China's shores, though the government says it has no hostile intent.Champagne, colorful ribbons, water cannons and smoke were deployed to celebrate the carrier's launch and official naming at a ceremony at the Jiangnan shipyard in Shanghai…

06 May 2020

US Rearms to Nullify China's Missile Supremacy

File photo: A Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is launched from the guided missile cruiser USS Cape St. George in the eastern Mediterranean Sea March 23, 2003. (U.S. Navy photo by Kenneth Moll)

As Washington and Beijing trade barbs over the coronavirus pandemic, a longer-term struggle between the two Pacific powers is at a turning point, as the United States rolls out new weapons and strategy in a bid to close a wide missile gap with China.The United States has largely stood by in recent decades as China dramatically expanded its military firepower. Now, having shed the constraints of a Cold War-era arms control treaty, the Trump administration is planning to deploy long-range…

06 Apr 2020

Solomons Retrieve Five Bodies Swept off Ferry

NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Harold over the Solomon Islands in the Southern Pacific Ocean on April 3, 2020. Credit: NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS)

Solomon Islands police said on Sunday they had retrieved five bodies in their search for 27 people who were swept off a ferry during a tropical cyclone that is now threatening the nearby South Pacific nation of Vanuatu as category four storm.The MV Taimareho set sail early on Friday in strong winds with 738 passengers including crew and the captain on board. Police said the missing are believed to have fallen off during heavy seas.Cyclone Harold - then a category two storm - crossed just to the south of Solomon Islands early on Friday.

27 Jan 2020

Fishing for Trouble

© Rachael / Adobe Stock

Radar confusion and speed cited in ferry groundingWhile the perennial issue of commercial vessel and recreational boat collisions, near misses and allisions with navigational aids are certainly nothing new, in much of  the navigable waters of the United States they are typically associated with the warmer weather of late spring, summer and early fall when privately-owned boats abound on the nation’s lakes, rivers, bays and sounds.But even after the cabin cruisers, sailboats, jet skis…

04 Sep 2019

After 40 Years of Service, Ferry Completes Major Refit

The Comorant sails again after its four-month refit at Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding(CREDIT: Gladding Hearn)

With thousands of miles under her keel ferrying passengers from Woods Hole, Mass., to the private island of Naushon, part of the Elizabethan Island chain south of Woods Hole, the Comorant just underwent a four-month refit at Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, which built the vessel in 1979. Pret Gladding, a co-founder of the Somerset, Mass.-based shipyard, designed the 56 ft., 49 passenger ferry for the Naushon Island Trust. The Cormorant is the year-round lifeline to this small island community…

20 Feb 2018

Chinese Warships Enter East Indian Ocean

Eleven Chinese warships sailed into the East Indian Ocean this month, a Chinese news portal said, amid a constitutional crisis in the tiny tropical island chain of the Maldives now under a state of emergency. A fleet of destroyers and at least one frigate, a 30,000-tone amphibious transport dock and three support tankers entered the Indian Ocean, news portal Sina.com.cn said, without linking the deployment to the crisis in the Maldives or giving a reason. "If you look at warships and other equipment, the gap between the Indian and Chinese navy is not large," Sina.com.cn said on Sunday. It did not say when the fleet was deployed or for how long.

15 Jan 2018

Stricken Tanker Sinks, Leaves Large Slick in East China Sea

Two bodies, black box recovered from tanker before sinking; Iran says remaining 29 crew, passengers presumed dead. A stricken Iranian tanker that sank in the East China Sea on Sunday in the worst oil ship disaster in decades has produced a large oil slick, Chinese media and Japanese authorities said on Monday, as worries grew over damage to the marine ecosystem. The tanker Sanchi (IMO:9356608) had been adrift and ablaze after crashing into the freighter CF Crystal (IMO:9497050) on Jan. 6. Strong winds had pushed it away from the Chinese coast, where the incident happened, and into Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The Japan Coast Guard said oil had spread over an area 13 km (8.1 miles) long and 11 km (6.8 miles) wide…

13 Jul 2016

Indonesia Hopes Fishermen Can Net Its South China Sea Claims

Indonesia wants to send hundreds of fishermen to the Natuna Islands to assert its sovereignty over nearby areas of the South China Sea to which China says it also has claims. President Joko Widodo has launched an unprecedented campaign to bolster fishing, oil exploration and defence facilities around the island chain after a series of face-offs between the Indonesian navy and Chinese fishing boats. "We are aware that if we don't do this there could be many claims that disrupt the integrity of Indonesian territory," Chief Maritime Minister Rizal Ramli told reporters on Wednesday. The announcement of the plan came a day after the Permanent…

22 Jun 2016

Indonesian President to Assert Sovereignty in Islands Visit

The Indonesian president will travel to the Natuna Islands for the first time on Thursday to assert Indonesia's sovereignty, a senior official said, after China said earlier this week it had an "overlapping claim" over nearby waters. Beijing said on Monday that waters near the Natuna Islands were subject to overlapping claims on "maritime rights and interests" between China and Indonesia. Indonesia's foreign minister on Wednesday rejected China's stance, saying the waters were in Indonesian territory. "Our position is clear that claims can only be made on the basis of international law. For Indonesia, we don't have overlapping claims in any form in Indonesian waters with China," Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters.

28 Mar 2016

China Angered by Japan's New Radar Station

Japan on Monday switched on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to Taiwan and a group of islands disputed by Japan and China, drawing an angry response from Beijing. The new Self Defence Force base on the island of Yonaguni is at the western extreme of a string of Japanese islands in the East China Sea, 150 km (90 miles) south of the disputed islands known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. China has raised concerns with its neighbours and in the West with its assertive claim to most of the South China Sea where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims. Japan has long been mired in a territorial dispute with China over the East China Sea islands.

16 Feb 2016

South China Sea Takes Center Stage at US-ASEAN Summit

U.S. President Barack Obama and Southeast Asian leaders turned their attention to China on Tuesday on the second day of a summit intended to improve commercial links and provide a united front on maritime disputes with Beijing. After a first day discussing trade and economic issues at the Sunnylands resort in California, Obama and his Association of Southeast Asian Nations counterparts were to try to arrive at a common position on the South China Sea, where China and several ASEAN states have conflicting claims. Not all the 10 ASEAN nations agree on how to handle the disputes and U.S. officials want a statement calling for China to follow international law and handle disputes peacefully.

23 Dec 2015

Arctic Coast Guard Forum: Eyes and Ears Up North

Sailors aboard the fast attack submarine USS Seawolf (SSN 21) inspect the boat after surfacing through Arctic ice. Seawolf conducted routine Arctic operations. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)

On October 30, 2015, at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, the heads of eight agencies fulfilling the functions of Coast Guard of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the United States signed a Joint Statement formally establishing the Arctic Coast Guard Forum (ACGF). The ACGF is an independent, informal, operationally-driven organization. It is not bound by treaty, but will work in cooperation with the Arctic Council to foster safe, secure, and environmentally responsible maritime activity in the Arctic region.

20 Oct 2015

Navy to Search for El Faro Wreckage

El Faro (Photo: U.S. Navy)

Fleet Ocean Tug USNS Apache (T-ATF 172) departed Norfolk, Virginia, today to begin searching for wreckage from the missing U.S. flagged merchant vessel El Faro. The ship is deploying to a search area northeast of Crooked Island in the Bahamas island chain, which is the last known location of the vessel. The initial search area is 100 square miles, and water depth is estimated to be 15,000 feet across the expected search area. Transit to this search area is expected to take four-to-five days due to weather.

02 Oct 2015

Cargo Ship Missing in Hurricane Joaquin

Image: NOAA

The fate of more than 30 crew aboard a cargo ship that ran afoul of Hurricane Joaquin off the Bahamas was unknown on Friday as the powerful storm battered the island chain for a second day. News of the missing vessel came as forecasters shifted the likely track of the powerful storm further away from the U.S. East Coast, but there were still warnings about the potential for severe flooding in the Carolinas from unrelated heavy rains. A potentially catastrophic Category 4 hurricane on a scale of 1 to 5…

30 Jul 2015

RoRo Launched for Royal Bahamas Defense Force

Photo: Damen

A Damen RoRo 5612 was launched this month at Halong Shipyard in Vietnam, the shipbuilder announced. The RoRo is one of nine Damen vessels ordered by the Royal Bahamas Defense Force as part of its Sandy Bottom Project. The vessel’s multipurpose capabilities will be put to use by the Defense Force in a range of situations including law enforcement, aids to navigation (ATON), replenishment at sea (RAS), the re-supply to Defense Force bases and the provision of disaster relief throughout the island nation and the wider Caribbean community.

24 Jul 2015

China: Every Right to Drill in East China Sea

China said on Friday it had every right to drill in the East China Sea close to waters disputed with Japan, adding that it did not recognise a "unilateral" Japanese median line setting out a boundary between the two in the waters. Japan this week called on China to halt construction of oil-and-gas exploration platforms in the East China Sea close to waters claimed by both nations, concerned that Chinese drills could tap reservoirs that extend into Japanese territory. Patrol ships and aircraft from both countries have been shadowing each other in the area over the past couple of years, raising fears of a confrontation and clash. In an escalation of the latest dispute…

21 Jul 2015

Japan Demands Chinese Halt to South China Sea Energy Play

Japan called on China on Tuesday to halt construction of oil-and-gas exploration platforms in the East China Sea close to waters claimed by both nations, concerned that Chinese drills could tap reservoirs that extend into Japanese territory. Japan's Defense Ministry added the demand to its annual defense review after hawkish members of the ruling party complained that its original draft was too soft on China, a ministry official said. China resumed exploration in the East China Sea two years ago, the report said. In 2012, Japan's government had angered Beijing and purchased a disputed island chain there. Before then, Beijing had curtailed activities under an agreement with Japan to jointly develop undersea resources in disputed areas.

28 May 2015

Maritime Disputes Test China's Peaceful Rise

US and Malaysian jets fly above the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea. The Carl Vinson Strike group is deployed to 7th Fleet area of operations supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by John Philip Wagner, Jr.)

The South China Sea has become the most important testing ground for the changing economic, political and military relationship between China and the United States. The islands, rocks, reefs and shoals at the heart of the dispute - most of them uninhabited and submerged at high tide - cover just a few square kilometres of a sea area that extends over 3 million square kilometres. But long-festering disputes over sovereignty among the littoral states (principally China, Vietnam and the Philippines but involving Malaysia…

15 May 2015

South China Sea Dispute Takes to the Skies

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.

13 Mar 2015

Aleutian Islands Gets Shipping Protection Zone

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) approved protective buffer zones (“Areas to be Avoided”) around Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, approximately 10 years after a shipping disaster occurred off its coasts. In December 2004, the M/V Selendang Ayu foundered off the Aleutians amidst severe weather and was blown to shore, eventually breaking into two pieces and causing more than 300,000 gallons of toxic heavy fuel oil to spill into pristine marine waters and resulted in the deaths of six crew members. Shipping in and around the Aleutian Islands is significant. In 2012, nearly 2,000 individual vessels made more than 4,600 transits through Unimak Pass at the eastern end of the island chain.

18 Mar 2015

Insights: Steven Candito, President & CEO, NRC

Steven Candito, President and CEO of NRC

This month’s featured INSIGHTS executive is Steven A. Candito, President and CEO of the National Response Corporation (NRC). He has extensive experience with OPA 90 compliance issues with particular focus on vessel owner and insurance matters. Candito was previously an attorney with Haight Gardner Poor & Havens, specializing in maritime litigation and environmental law. He also served as a marine engineer aboard Exxon USA’s domestic tanker fleet from 1980 to 1985. Candito is a graduate of Hofstra University School of Law and the United States Merchant Marine Academy.

13 May 2015

Philippine to Build Naval Base on Disputed Waters

Philippine military will soon build naval base on the country’s western coastline, opposite the disputed Spratly islands, Reuters reported Armed Forces chief Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. as saying. "We feel this is the number one priority because of the emerging security situation. As soon as we have the money, we will pour resources there,” he said. He said once they finished the facility at Oyster Bay on the country’s island of Palawan, they will allow the United States, Japan, and Vietnam to make port calls. Philippine’s possible plan of developing the island paradise into a military base could annoy China which already controls the majority in the disputed waters.