US Navy destroyer, USS John McCain (not a typo), sailed within 12 miles of an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea on Thursday in what will be viewed by China as a “provocation” that will warrant a response from the Chinese government.
China has been engaged in a long standing dispute with its neighbors over its a network of artificial islands it constructed in the South China Sea.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has met with his recently appointed Japanese counterpart Taro Kono after slamming Japan’s pro-US stance on China’s sovereignty over the waters and islands of the South China Sea.
While Japan is not located on the South China Sea and has long since ceased its former aggressive colonial activities in the region, Tokyo continues to express what China calls a carbon-copy of US policy which calls for the molestation of China’s rights in its southern sea.
China is furious at India for moving troops into a disputed territory in the Himalayas at the triangular intersection of the borders between China, India and Bhutan.
The current stand-off is the most serious since the 1962 border war fought between China and India in which China scored a decisive victory.
China has recently conducted live-fire military drills in the region in a move that is clearly intended to demonstrate China’s seriousness over the issue.
Plans have been revealed for a modernisation programme of Chinese military power.
The plan calls for a drastic expansion of the People’s Liberation Army Navy which is set to include more vessels and personnel.
The move also includes an expansion of Strategic Support Force and Rocket Forces.
Airforce numbers are set to remain the same.
The biggest change is that the People’s Liberation Army forces will be reduced from their present 2.3 million to just under 1 million, still making it the largest standing army in the world.
Many in Philippines saw President Rodrigo Duterte’s overtures to China as a gamble, some called it foolish, but the reality is that sooner or later all nations of the region will have to acknowledge that there is a global super-power at their back door and that super-power is not the United States.
(ANTIMEDIA) — As the Syrian and Russian governments accuse the United States of trying to invent reasons to launch an attack in the Middle East, an international group of former military and diplomatic leaders is warning of an “unacceptably high” risk of global nuclear war if cooler heads don’t prevail.
This week Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is set to meet with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The meeting should be understood as part of Duterte’s efforts to take his country out of America’s geo-political and economic orbit and engage in countries that constitute the other end of the multi-polar world.
Duterte has all ready engaged in an historic rapprochement with China, something which looks set to calm tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has claimed that China would go to war with his country if he continued to contest disputed island territories in the South China Sea with Beijing.
Duterte, who has engaged in what for the Philippines is an historical rapprochement with China, retold a conversation he had with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said,
“I really said, ‘It’s ours. I’d like you to listen for a while.’ I said, ‘Mr. Xi Jinping, I would insist that that is ours and I will drill oil there”.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has survived an opposition attempt to impeach him.
The right-wing Magdalo Party had moved to impeach the Philippines President, accusing him of betraying the public trust and abusing the Constitution in respect of his war on drugs.
However, the more important, though less headline grabbing reason for the attempted impeachment is Duterte’s historic rapprochement with China over disputed territories in the South China Sea.
