Spratly Archipelago News

The Philippines said on Monday it rejected Beijing's assertion of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, disputing a claim by China's embassy that a Filipino diplomat had once conceded the disputed Scarborough Shoal was not part of Philippine territory."China must be reminded that maritime and territorial claims are subject to established international legal procedures and dispute settlement mechanisms, not through unilateral proclamations or social media posts," Philippine foreign ministry spokesperson Rogelio Villanueva told a briefing.Villanueva said the Philippines had "indivisible…

The Philippine foreign ministry said on Thursday that China has no right to object to or interfere with its lawful and routine activities in the South China Sea.The ministry said it also "rejects and refutes" recent statements of the Chinese embassy in Manila that Beijing has indisputable sovereignty over the Spratly islands.The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and China between them have claims and a presence on dozens of features in the Spratly archipelago, ranging from reefs and rocks to islands, natural and artificial.

China and the Philippines traded accusations on Thursday following a confrontation between two of their vessels in contested waters of the South China Sea, the latest incident in a long-running maritime standoff in the strategic waterway.The Philippines' fisheries bureau said the lives of a civilian crew were put at risk when the Chinese Coast Guard fired water cannons and sideswiped a vessel as it conducted marine research around a disputed South China Sea reef.The Bureau of…

The Philippines said on Monday there was no truth to news reports that Beijing has seized control of a disputed reef in the South China Sea, after its personnel landed on the unoccupied sandbars and found no Chinese presence there.Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Friday said its coast guard had landed on Sandy Cay as part of maritime control operations to exercise its sovereignty. It did not say China was occupying the feature.CCTV showed pictures of four coast guard personnel…

Malaysia issued a complaint to Vietnam over its alleged expansion of a South China Sea reef that both countries claim as their own, a rare bilateral escalation not involving China.The move brings to light another of the multiple disputes in the strategic waterway, most of which China claims sovereignty over, with Beijing involved in frequent altercations with the Philippines and sporadic rows with Vietnam.The most contested features are around the Spratly archipelago, where China…

China and the Philippines will negotiate a military protocol to avoid maritime “miscalculations”, Manila’s defence minister said on Wednesday, following a brief standoff near a Philippine-occupied island in a disputed part of the South China Sea. Delfin Lorenzana said the Philippines tried to put up makeshift structures on a sand bar about 4 km (2.5 miles) off Thitu island in the Spratly archipelago in August, but China objected and sent ships to the area. President Rodrigo Duterte sought to defuse tensions by ordering troops to pull out. Construction was stopped. “We intend to sit down with China to draft and agree on a protocol to resolve immediately any incident,” he said, adding he hoped talks could start this year.

China has assured the Philippines it will not occupy new features or territory in the South China Sea, under a new "status quo" brokered by Manila as both sides try to strengthen their relations, the Philippine defence minister said. Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano also said the Philippines was working on a "commercial deal" with China to explore and exploit oil and gas resources in disputed areas of the South China Sea with an aim to begin drilling within a year. The defence minister, Delfin Lorenzana, told a congressional hearing the Philippines and China had reached a "modus vivendi", or a way to get along, in the South China Sea that prohibits new occupation of islands.

Far out in the South China Sea, where dark blue meets bright turquoise, a miles-long row of fishing boats anchor near Scarborough Shoal, backed by a small armada of coastguard projecting China's power in Asia's most disputed waters. China still calls the shots at the prime fishing spot and has boosted its fleet there, nine months after an international panel ruled its blockade of the lagoon was illegal. Beijing rejected that ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which invalidated China's claim of sovereignty over most of the South China Sea. But the presence of Philippine boats dotted between Chinese vessels shows a degree of compliance with the ruling.

Taiwan said Tuesday it does not accept a tribunal's ruling on the South China Sea, saying the decision on Itu Aba, Taipei's sole holding in the disputed Spratly Islands, had "seriously impaired" its territorial rights. The arbitration court in The Hague ruled that China has no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea and that it has breached the sovereign rights of the Philippines with its actions there, infuriating a defiant Beijing. Taiwan, formally known as the "Republic of China", is also a claimant in the South China Sea. The maps China bases its South China Sea claims on date to when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists ruled China before they fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists.

The U.S. military conducted "freedom of navigation" operations against 13 countries last year, including several to challenge China's claims in the South and East China seas, according to an annual Pentagon report released on Monday. The operations were against China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, the Maldives, Oman, the Philippines and Vietnam, the report said. It did not specify how many such operations were conducted against each of those countries. The U.S. military carried out single operations against Taiwan, Nicaragua and Argentina, for a total of 13 countries, the department said in the two-page report. The freedom of navigation operations involve sending U.S. Navy ships and military aircraft into areas where other countries have tried to limit access.

The United States will transfer an observation blimp to the Philippines to help it track maritime activity and guard its borders amid rising tensions in the South China Sea, a U.S. diplomat said on Monday. Philip Goldberg, U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, said Washington would give Manila, its oldest Asia-Pacific security ally, $42 million worth of sensors, radar and communications equipment. The blimp is a balloon-borne radar to collect information and detect movements in the South China Sea, a Philippine military official said. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to parts of the waters, through which about $5 trillion in trade is shipped every year. U.S.

Carter says U.S. promoting Asian peace and security. The chief U.S. defense official visited an American aircraft carrier transiting the disputed South China Sea on Friday, as China said one of its top military officers had visited islands and reefs in the region to oversee building work. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter flew to the nuclear-powered USS John C. Stennis for a two-hour visit as it sailed 60 to 70 miles west of the Philippines island of Luzon. While there, he dismissed China's characterization of a more robust U.S. military presence in the region as being the cause of heightened tensions. "What's new is not an American carrier in this region," Carter said aboard the Stennis, where he met U.S. troops and observed flight operations.

Defence officials from the Philippines and Vietnam will meet this week to explore possible joint exercises and navy patrols, military sources said, shoring up a new alliance between states locked in maritime rows with China. Ties have strengthened between the two Southeast Asian countries as China's assertiveness intensifies with a rapid buildup of man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago, to which Vietnam and the Philippines lay claim. Both states are also on the receiving end of a renewed charm offensive by the United States, which is holding joint military exercises in the Philippines to be attended this week by U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

China's Foreign Ministry on Friday rebuffed Vietnam's second demand this year to move a controversial oil rig and drop plans to drill in South China Sea waters where jurisdiction is unclear, saying it was engaging in normal exploration activity. The $1-billion rig, which was at the centre of a fierce diplomatic stand-off between the countries in 2014, had moved into an area of the Gulf of Tonkin over which, Vietnam said, the two countries were still "executing delineation discussions". "The relevant work is in undisputed Chinese waters, and it is normal commercial exploration," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing. He did not elaborate.

Vietnam demanded China move a controversial oil rig on Thursday and abandon plans to start drilling in waters where jurisdiction is unclear, the latest sign of festering unease among the two communist neighbours. The $1 billion rig, which was at the centre of a fierce diplomatic stand-off between the countries in 2014, had moved into an area of the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea about which Vietnam said the two countries were still "executing delineation discussions". China calls the rig Haiyang Shiyou 981. Vietnam refers to it as Hai Duong 981. "Vietnam resolutely opposes and demands China cancel its plan to drill and immediately remove the Hai Duong 981 oil rig out of this area," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement on the government's news website.

Vietnam rebuked Taiwan on Thursday for taking journalists to a disputed South China Sea island, saying the trip was "illegal and worthless" and against the international community's wishes. The foreign ministry's comment on Wednesday's trip, the first by international media to the Spratly archipelago's Itu Aba island, was an unusually fast response by Vietnam, which often takes days to raise objections about territorial disputes. Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei have competing claims to the Spratly islands. "Taiwan sending reporters ... despite concerns and objections of Vietnam and the international community…

The United States has seen Chinese activity around a reef China seized from the Philippines nearly four years ago that could be a precursor to more land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea, the U.S. Navy chief said on Thursday. The head of U.S. naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, expressed concern that an international court ruling expected in coming weeks on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims could be a trigger for Beijing to declare an exclusion zone in the busy trade route. Richardson told Reuters the United States was weighing responses to such a move. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year.

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.

Chinese maritime officials on Friday removed an online notice giving the location of a $1-billion deepwater oil rig in the South China Sea two days after issuing it, following a warning from Vietnam about drilling in disputed waters. Vietnam closely tracks the movement of the oil rig, which in mid-2014 caused the worst diplomatic rift between the neighbours in decades, when China parked it for 10 weeks in waters Vietnam considers its own. Annual trade between the communist neighbours exceeds $60 billion but anti-China sentiment is strong in Vietnam, where people are embittered over what many see as a history of Chinese bullying and territorial infringements in the South China Sea.

In mid-2014, rig caused worst breakdown in ties in decades. China's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that a $1-billion deepwater oil rig was not drilling in disputed territory in the South China Sea, in response to a warning from Vietnam against such activity. Vietnam closely tracks the movement of the oil rig, which in mid-2014 caused the worst diplomatic breakdown between the neighbours in decades, when China parked it for 10 weeks in waters Vietnam considers its own. This week Vietnam said Beijing had steered the rig, the Haiyang Shiyou 981, into a stretch where jurisdiction is unclear. "According to what is understood, China's Haiyang Shiyou 981 drilling platform is operating in Chinese-controlled waters that are completely undisputed…

China has rejected a protest from Vietnam over a flight test it has conducted on a new airstrip on a man-made island in the South China Sea, saying it is part of China’s territory. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Saturday that the flight is to test whether the airfield facilities can meet civil aviation standards. “China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters. China will not accept the unfounded accusation from the Vietnamese side,” Hua said. Vietnam Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said the test flight violated Vietnam’s sovereignty, breached mutual understanding and hurt the bilateral relations.

China expressed anger on Monday after a group of Filipino protesters landed on a disputed Philippine-held island in the disputed South China Sea. About 50 protesters, most of them students, reached Thitu island in the Spratly archipelago on Saturday in a stand against what they say is Beijing's creeping invasion of the Philippine exclusive economic zone, said Eugenio Bito-onon, the island's mayor. China claims almost all the South China Sea, believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. China was "strongly dissatisfied" by what the Filipinos had done…

China's military carried out war games in the disputed South China Sea this week, with warships, submarines and fighter jets simulating cruise missile strikes on ships, the official People's Liberation Army Daily said on Friday. China claims almost all of the energy-rich waters of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of maritime trade passes each year. The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims. The U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander on Monday warned of a possible arms race in the disputed South China Sea which could engulf the region, as nations become increasingly tempted to use military force to settle territorial spats.