U.S. President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for a summit in Washington on April 11, the White House has announced. In a statement to the press yesterday, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that leaders “will discuss trilateral cooperation to promote inclusive economic growth and … Read more
The ship huddle was first spotted at Whitsun Reef last November. More than 100 vessels linked by ropes drifted around the northern end of the Spratly Islands for days. The Philippine Coast Guard’s attempts to establish radio contact with the ships were unsuccessful. “There is no one there,” a government official told a Manila newspaper. The Coast Guard described the incident as … Read more
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is set to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken next week to discuss cooperation and security matters amid continuing tensions in the South China Sea. In a statement issued last night, Marcos’ office said that the meeting would discuss the strengthening of defense and economic ties between the … Read more
Amid swelling seaborne trade, rising maritime crime, and intensifying territorial disputes, coast guards are increasingly central to Asian maritime security. However, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has long lagged behind its neighbors. A 2016 estimate put the PCG’s total tonnage at just 11 percent of the China Coast Guard (CCG), even though the two coast … Read more
Chinese and Philippine vessels have once again collided in a contested part of the South China Sea, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said today, as maritime disputes dominated discussions at a regional summit in Australia. PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela said the collision occurred during a routine “rotation and reprovisioning,” or RoRe operation designed to support … Read more
Hong Kong TheStarsHub — China and the Philippines on Sunday accused each other of causing collisions in a disputed area of the South China Sea, the latest in a string of maritime confrontations between the two countries that have heightened regional tensions. In a statement, Philippine authorities said a Chinese Coast Guard ship carried out … Read more
The Philippine government says that it plans to “validate and investigate” reports from Filipino fisherfolk that their Chinese counterparts are using cyanide to catch fish at the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. At a press conference on Saturday, Nazario Briguera, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) alleged … Read more
Recent tensions between China and the Philippines over the South China Sea, especially the Chinese blockade of the Philippines-controlled Second Thomas Shoal, have alerted all countries with a stake in the regional disputes to the risk of a possible crisis involving China and its maritime neighbors. To counteract its weakening position at sea vis-à-vis China … Read more
January 19 marks the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Paracel Islands, the first naval battle between China and Vietnam in the 20th century and a key conflict in the quest to control the South China Sea. This is also an occasion of reckoning on how the current Vietnamese government treats the history, legacy, … Read more
The Philippines has again condemned China’s coastguard for its latest “provocative action” against Filipino fishermen in the South China Sea, shortly after the two nations agreed to take additional steps to manage tensions in the disputed waterway. Yesterday, Jonathan Malaya, the spokesperson of the National Security Council, referred to an incident publicized by the Philippine … Read more