Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte told a celebrity pastor on Wednesday that he was invoking the nation’s Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States to demand the U.S. Navy attack China.
Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine ambassador to the United States, said on Tuesday the two countries are in discussions to strengthen their 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
Philippine protesters, including some members of the nation’s Congress, surrounded the Chinese consulate in Manila and burned Chinese flags to protest Beijing’s disregard for the 2016 international tribunal ruling finding the Communist Party’s colonization of the South China Sea, which turned three years old Friday.
China is the United States’ main national security challenge for the next 50 to 100 years, the Army general picked to become the top military officer in the United States said during a Senate hearing on Thursday.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte condemned the United States for allegedly “egging” his government into a war with China, daring Washington to attack Beijing and promising only a supporting role for his country, Philippine outlets reported on Sunday.
Japan’s largest warship, the Izumo, completed joint drills with allies including the U.S., France, and Australia this week, demonstrating Japan’s improved ability to project power across the region – pointedly including ground actions on islands like the ones China has been militarizing. China just used those islands to conduct missile tests that a growing list of Asian powers found disturbing, as did the United States.
Chinese forces based on disputed islands in the South China Sea announced over the weekend that an area also claimed by the Philippines would be closed to outside traffic for five days to accommodate a military drill. The U.S. military detected “concerning” tests of anti-ship missiles during the drill.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte responded to lawmakers and assorted pundits who raised the possibility of him facing impeachment for allowing the Chinese Communist Party to fish in Philippine waters on Thursday by threatening to arrest them.
Philippines Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III shocked the nation Thursday by coming out in defense of granting China fishing rights in Philippine sovereign waters in light of a Chinese ship sinking a Filipino fishing vessel and refusing to rescue its crew this month.
Ten of the dozens of Democrats running for U.S. president in the 2020 election appeared nearly evenly split during Wednesday’s debate in citing climate change or the rogue government of China as the biggest geopolitical threat facing the country today. All failed to mention that those threats are largely one and the same.
Philippine news outlets reported Wednesday that an unidentified man attacked a Chinese restaurant in the Manila metropolitan area with a grenade, which did not detonate.
Dozens of angry Philippine protesters urged President Duterte to act more decisively against increasingly common illegal activity by Chinese vessels in the South China Sea on Tuesday, burning Chinese flags in response to the sinking of a Philippine ship last week.
A spokesman for Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte suggested Monday that the country could invoke a mutual defense treaty with the United States to involve America in its ongoing dispute with China over a Philippine fishing vessel sunk in a “hit and run” accident in sovereign Philippine territory.
A spokesman for Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte described the notoriously foul-mouthed head of state as “very cautious” on Friday after local media began observing that he has not weighed in on what officials called the “barbaric” sinking of a Philippine ship by a presumed Chinese vessel in Philippine territorial waters.
The goverment of the Philippines issued an outraged condemnation Wednesday of a Chinese vessel for sinking a Philippine fishing ship near the Spratly Islands, in sovereign Philippine territory that China illegally claims as its own.
The director of a think tank dedicated to monitoring the South China Sea said on Friday that overfishing in the body of water, exacerbated by China’s attempted colonization, could damage industries and food security in all of Southeast Asia.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will sell 34 surveillance drones to four American allies in the South China Sea, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe told the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this weekend that Beijing is prepared to use military force to back up its claims on Taiwan and disputed islands in the South China Sea.
The Philippine Inquirer reported on Friday that a Philippine Coast Guard patrol boat, the BRP Sindangan, encountered some form of signal jamming last week while patrolling in the South China Sea. Given the location, suspicions immediately turned to the Chinese military as the source of the jamming signal.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan met with Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe on Friday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a major Asian security summit held in Singapore.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte arrived in Japan on Tuesday to attend the International Conference on the Future of Asia and meet with Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo for bilateral security talks about the South China Sea.
Australian navy helicopter pilots flying off the flagship HMAS Canberra were hit by lasers while transiting the South China Sea, forcing them to land as a precaution.
The Defense Department released a report on Thursday that warned China is dramatically upgrading its military capabilities and expanding its ability to project power, from Taiwan and the contested islands of the South China Sea to the Arctic Circle.
U.S. warships sailed through the Strait of Taiwan on Sunday, the latest in a series of passages that have irked China because they demonstrate America’s commitment to defend Taiwan and protect freedom of navigation around the world.
The Philippine government announced on Monday that it will take legal action against China for harvesting giant clams at the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
The Philippine Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that a swarm of hundreds of Chinese fishing boats around a South China Sea island claimed by Manila is a clear violation of the sovereign territory of the Philippines.
The Trump administration delivered six patrol boats worth $12 million to Vietnam’s Coast Guard, the American embassy in Hanoi announced on Monday, saying the move represents the “deepening cooperation” in law enforcement and humanitarian efforts between the former enemies.
Former Philippine officials Albert del Rosario and Conchita Carpio Morales announced on Thursday they have filed a human rights complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Chinese President Xi Jinping over his government’s actions in the South China Sea.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is speaking out about Italy’s reported willingness to sign onto the People’s Republic of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, telling Breitbart News that reports of the Italians’ openness to joining the Communist Party of China program is “stunningly naive.”
The United States flew a B-52 Stratofortress over the contested South China Sea on Tuesday, as China continues to aggressively pursue its territorial claims in the region.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has committed to helping the Philippines defend its territory in the South China Sea, as China continues to aggressively pursue its own claims to territory.
The Chinese military this week concluded a month of unannounced exercises in the South China Sea and the Pacific aimed at testing its “wartime command system” and enhancing its missile defenses, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) revealed on Thursday.
WASHINGTON, DC — China’s “massive effort to grow and modernize” the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is “eroding” the United States’ “relative competitive military advantage” in the Indo-Pacific region, the top American commander in the area warned on Tuesday, stressing that Beijing’s communist leaders are sensing “weaknesses.”
China’s Foreign Ministry expressed “strong dissatisfaction” on Monday after two U.S. warships sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP).
General Li Zuocheng of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) echoed the sentiments of Communist Party leader Xi Jinping in remarks Tuesday urging America not to retain ties to Taiwan and that any attempt to protect it from Chinese invasion would be met with military force.
The U.S. military’s chief of naval operations traveled to Beijing on Sunday for a four-day visit focused on “results-oriented, risk-reduction” talks between the Chinese and American armed forces amid the growing geopolitical and military rivalry between two nations, the United States Navy revealed in a statement Monday.
China responded to the latest U.S. Navy freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea by declaring it would “take necessary actions to protect state sovereignty” and touting its deployment of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles as a step toward doing so. Chinese state media pointedly described the missiles as “ship-killers.”
The destroyer USS McCampbell conducted a Freedom of Navigation Patrol (FONOP) on Monday that brought it within 12 nautical miles of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
Contents: Britain may establish a military base in South China Sea after Brexit; US State Dept issues elevated travel warning for China
China’s Ministry of Natural Resources on Tuesday announced an initiative to repair damage to coral reefs inflicted by its dubiously legal development of disputed islands in the South China Sea’s Spratly chain.
