Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called out China for militarizing “artificial features” in the South China Sea — a dig at China’s placing weapons on land features claimed by several countries that China has turned into islands.
The Chinese government newspaper Global Times said on Thursday that the nation is intent on making “full preparations and strategic arrangements for long-lasting contention” with the United States in the South China Sea.
SINGAPORE — Although Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is expected to discuss North Korea during his talks with allies and partners at an annual defense conference in Singapore, he is also expected to address the other 800-lb. gorilla in the room — China.
India and Indonesia have reportedly embarked on a joint effort to counter China’s expansionism across the Indo-Pacific region with both countries agreeing to step up naval defense and security cooperation, the Times of India reported Thursday.
Contents: Philippine President Duterte reverses position, says he would go to war with China over South China Sea; China raises ‘combat readiness’ as US-China relations become increasingly hostile
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that the U.S. would confront behavior out of step with international law, in response to a question about U.S. defense policy towards China’s increasing deployment of military weapons on territories in the South China Sea.
Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte is prepared to “go to war” with China over their dispute in the South China Sea, his secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alan Peter Cayetano, said Monday.
A report at the South China Morning Post on Monday contends that China is dramatically accelerating its nuclear weapons research, conducting about four times more simulated nuclear explosions in laboratory experiments as the United States between 2012 and 2017.
Two American warships, the guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins and the missile cruiser USS Antietam, conducted a freedom of navigation patrol near Woody Island in the South China Sea on Sunday – the same island in the Paracels chain where China landed nuclear-capable long-range bombers for the first time last week.
President Donald Trump officially nominated Navy Adm. Harry B. Harris, Jr., to be ambassador to South Korea, rescinding his previous nomination to lead the embassy in Canberra, Australia, on Wednesday, a move signaling Trump will continue adopting a strong stance against China’s militarization of the region.
The Chinese Defense Ministry criticized the United States on Thursday for withdrawing China’s invitation to participate in the Rim of the Pacific international military exercise (RIMPAC). The U.S. rescinded the invitation due to China’s aggressive militarization of the South China Sea.
The Pentagon announced on Wednesday it has disinvited China from participating in the upcoming Rim of the Pacific Exercise, in a major sign of tension between the U.S. and Chinese militaries.
China responded on Monday to criticism of its heavy bombers landing on a South China Sea airstrip by insisting it was all part of a routine training exercise and said the United States is the party that threatens regional stability by sending warships on freedom of navigation patrols through territory claimed by Beijing.
China reportedly landed one of its H-6K heavy bombers on Woody Island in the Paracels late last week, increasing concerns about Chinese militarization of disputed islands in the South China Sea, prompting a complaint and “appropriate diplomatic action” from the Philippines.
Contents: China escalates militarization of South China Sea, preparing for war; China prepares for war on multiple fronts
China’s Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russia’s state oil company Rosneft against drilling near disputed South China Sea islands claimed by Beijing. Russia insists the project in question has been conducted entirely within Vietnam’s territorial waters.
Contents: China says that its military exercises are intended to threaten Taiwan; Taiwan, in cooperation with the U.S., strengthens defenses against China
Clothing retailer Gap apologized to China on Tuesday for selling a T-shirt that displayed a map of China but did not include Taiwan, southern Tibet, or disputed islands in the South China Sea claimed by the Chinese.
China has significantly stepped up its military exercises around Taiwan at the same time it has tried to isolate it diplomatically, according to Taiwan’s minister of foreign affairs.
China deploys cruise and surface-to-air missiles in South China Sea; China’s military attacks US pilots in Djibouti with high-grade blinding lasers
China recently installed anti-ship cruise missiles in the South China Sea, sparking concern and a warning of “consequences” from the United States.
James Delingpole and British MP Daniel Kawczynski discuss potential successors to British Prime Minister Theresa May. Among their favorites are MPs Jacob Rees Mogg and Priti Patel. Also, James and Kawczynski weigh in on Brexit, Poland, and the changes in Saudi Arabia.
Professor Clive Hamilton of Australia’s Charles Sturt University spoke to the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China on Thursday, warning that China is waging a “campaign of psychological warfare” against vital American allies like Australia, using tactics such as “subversion, cyber intrusions, and harassment on the high seas.”
Prospective U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to change President Donald Trump’s choice for the ambassadorial post in Australia, top Adm. Harry Harris, and “re-nominate” him for the South Korea envoy position instead, the Washington Post (WaPo) reported this week.
China’s Communist Party ruler Xi Jinping, meeting with high-level officials on Tuesday, celebrated advances to his totalitarian regime’s ambitions to keep political opponents silenced in the name of “national security.”
Australia has a “perfect right” to sail naval assets through the South China Sea and a recent robust exchange in the disputed waters is symbolic of that fact, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.
The Philippines is reportedly looking to lodge a protest against China’s alleged presence of two military aircraft on a Chinese-built island in the South China Sea.
Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute and author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream Is the New Threat to World Order, told SiriusXM hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Tonight that China could “choke off trade” and “control access” to a critical maritime trade route if allowed to control the South China Sea.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was on hand for a military drill on Friday, a day after China held the largest naval drill in its history in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. China also indicated this week that it will hold live-fire drills in the Straits of Taiwan.
Chinese Communist Party leader traveled to the South China Sea on Thursday to preside over what state media are calling “the country’s largest ever maritime military parade,” a series of exercises meant to intimidate rival powers in a region where Beijing has illegally colonized foreign territory.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear-powered super-carrier known by crew-members as the “Big Stick,” sailed through the disputed South China Sea this week, marking the latest display of America’s naval muscle in defiance of Beijing’s territorial claims in the region.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) confirmed that Beijing has installed military equipment capable of jamming communications and radars on two of its outposts in the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands, reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing a satellite image and U.S. officials.
On Saturday, Japan activated its first marine combat unit since World War Two. China immediately panicked over the relatively small Japanese force, denouncing the revival of “militarism” under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and advising every other Asian nation to go on “high alert” in the state-run Global Times.
Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping met United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Beijing this weekend and reportedly urged the leader to further promote “global governance” to solve the world’s problems.
Beijing and Hanoi vowed to work out their differences over China’s claim to nearly the entire South China Sea, including territory within the maritime borders of Vietnam, in a meeting of high-level officials this week.
Contents: Russia-China strategy to use the UN to control Western foreign policy has stopped working; The West reacts to Russia’s poisoning of double-agent Skripal; China reacts furiously to Western expulsion of Russian diplomats; China ‘prepares for war’ with massive naval/air force drills in South China Sea
China held large-scale naval exercises involving dozens of vessels in the South China Sea this week as the government again seeks to show off its military power around the disputed territory.
China’s naval and air forces began what observers described as unusually large exercises in the Western Pacific and South China Sea this weekend, including H-6K bombers, Tu-154 reconnaissance planes, Yun-8 transport planes, and Su-30 and Su-35 fighters.
The USS Mustin American destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands on Friday, prompting an angry statement from Beijing claiming that China has “indisputable sovereignty” over the islands and accusing the United States of “harming regional peace and stability” with its patrols.
Contents: Report that Russia is helping the Taliban in Afghanistan contains delusional aspects; US warship sails near China’s illegal artificial island in the South China Sea
