The past four weeks saw the swiftest escalation in recent years of tensions over the territorial disputes between China and its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific. The tensions spiraled in late November when the province of Hainan, in the southern coastal region of China, issued an imperial-sounding edict that its so-called lawmaking body had authorized its [...]
President Aquino’s Administrative Order No. 29, which renames the South China Sea waters off the Philippines’ west coast the West Philippine Sea, heightened tensions between Manila and Beijing after the cancellation of the planned talks between Mr. Aquino and Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders’ summit in Vladivostok, Russia, on Sept. 8-9.
A Chinese salvage fleet of at least five vessels and several smaller boats steamed last week into a shoal off Palawan island to rescue a People’s Liberation Army warship that ran aground a reef while patrolling disputed waters in the Spratly archipelago in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
The Philippines and China have agreed to lower tensions over a naval standoff in the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea). But the moves to set aside diplomatic protests over Chinese fishing intrusions into the uninhabited shoal will not cut short centuries-old disputes over the resources-rich Spratly Islands to the south.
