Taiwan News

German frigate’s forthcoming transit comes as Western allies step up ‘freedom of navigation’ passages in disputed sea

German Sachsen-class frigate the Hamburg (Bundeswehr photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A German frigate will traverse the South China Sea this summer for the first time since 2002, German officials confirmed Tuesday (March 1).

Officials in the country’s defense and foreign ministries told Reuters that the frigate, scheduled to embark on a trip to Asia in August, will traverse the South China Sea on the return leg of its journey.

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TTO – Đúng 9h ngày 2-6-2017, lần đầu tiên trong lịch sử Hải quân nhân dân Việt Nam và cả Tổ quốc, quả tên lửa phóng đi từ tàu ngầm bắn trúng trực tiếp mục tiêu, ghi dấu mốc đầy tự hào với kíp tàu ngầm lớp kilo 636 số hiệu 182-Hà Nội.

Đây cũng chính là kíp tàu ngầm đầu tiên được đi Nga học.

Nhớ lại những dấu mốc không thể nào quên với tàu ngầm kilo số hiệu 182, thiếu tá Nguyễn Trọng Khôi, thuyền trưởng tàu ngầm mang tên thủ đô Hà Nội, nói: “Khi bước chân sang Nga học, chúng tôi đã quyết tâm học, không chỉ vì danh dự của mỗi cá nhân mà còn học vì Tổ quốc”.

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February 19, 2021 10:28 AM USNI News

The following is a translation of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies assessment of the recently released U.S. maritime strategy, Advantage at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power. The China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College made the translation.

The Prelude to All-Encompassing Maritime Competition Between China and the U.S. is about to Begin—An Appraisal of America’s Newest Maritime Strategy

By Shi Xiaoqin and Liu Xiaobo

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Daniel Hoffman, HARVAFRD’s Belfer Center

| May 21, 2020

Pluralism and freedom vs. Communist autocracy

During his Senate confirmation hearing last week to be the next director of national intelligence, Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe emphasized China is this country’s “greatest threat actor,” a status only confirmed by rising acrimony over Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. But though tensions are rising in the South China Sea, where U.S. Navy missions challenge China’s unsubstantiated claims of hegemony over the region, an actual war between the two powers appears unlikely.

But are the United States and China on a path to a new Cold War?

The heart of U.S.-China conflict is in the realm of ideas. Democratic principles of liberty, pluralism and freedom are antithetical to China’s autocratic Communist state and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s expanding cult of personality. Through its ubiquitous state surveillance and “Great Firewall” on online dissent, China seeks to deny its citizens freedom of expression and access to the outside world.

By Adrien Chorn and Monica Michiko Sato – October 1, 2019, CSIS

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On August 31, 1951, representatives of the United States and the Republic of the Philippines signed the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) in Washington. In recognition that “an armed attack in the Pacific Area on either of the Parties would be dangerous to [the] peace and safety” of both countries, the treaty declared that each state would “act to meet the common dangers in accordance with its constitutional processes.”ⁱ However, like most conventional defense treaties and standards, the MDT is not clear about the increasingly common unconventional gray zone threats that skirt the definition of war to avoid prompting a kinetic response. Since its inception, the United States’ commitment to the MDT regarding attacks on Philippine assets in contested waters in the South China Sea has been unclear. 

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Permanent mission to UN sends note saying China’s territorial baselines on some islands and reefs fail to satisfy conditions in United Nations conventionIt also accuses China of restricting freedom of navigation and overflight

Laura Zhou in Beijing

Published: 7:51pm, 21 Jan, 2021 SCMP

Japan’s diplomatic note made reference to China’s protests against the overflight of Japanese aircraft at Mischief Reef. Photo: AP

Japan has joined a battle of diplomatic notes over the South China Sea dispute, adding to pressure on Beijing over its expansive claims in the strategically important waterway.

In a note verbale – a type of diplomatic communication – sent on Tuesday, Japan’s permanent mission to the United Nations said China’s “drawing of territorial sea baselines … on relevant islands and reefs in the South China Sea” failed to satisfy conditions set out in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

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31 Jan, 2021 01:26 AM7 minutes to read Nzherald

news.com.auBy: Jamie Seidel25

China is “threatening war” after it authorised its warships to open fire on fishers plying traditional waters, warns the Philippines. Now Washington says it has Manila’s back.

Beijing has passed legislation calling upon its military-controlled coast guard to open fire upon “foreign” vessels and destroy “illegal” structures within the East and South China seas.

Problem is, those territories don’t belong to it.

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Geoff Ziezulewicz

The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and its strike group entered the South China Sea Saturday [1/23/2021], a month into their second deployment in a year. While a Navy release announcing TR’s move states the carrier is conducting routine operations, very little has been routine in the disputed waters for several years. Beijing and its regional neighbors all have competing claims to various swaths of the busy waterway, and the U.S. Navy regularly sails into the sea to push back on Beijing’s expanding territorial claims and island building, and to reinforce the fact that such waters are international. Continue reading on CVD >>

Al Jareeza
Legislation also allows demolition of other countries’ structures built on Chinese-claimed reefs.

23 Jan 2021

China has passed a law that for the first time explicitly allows its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels, a move that could make the contested South China Sea and nearby waters more choppy.

The Coast Guard Law passed on Friday empowers it to “take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons when national sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organisations or individuals at sea”.

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Gray Zone – Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff

Đọc tiếp The East Sea – Understanding Gray Zone →