Latest news with #SpratlyIslands
South China Morning Post
04-07-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Philippines-China sea dispute moves to legal battlefield with cyber libel suit
The Philippines ' maritime dispute with China has spilled into the courts after a top coastguard official filed a cyber libel case against a pro-Beijing influencer over explosive – and, he claims, baseless – allegations that he is a paid asset of the United States. Commodore Jay Tarriela, spokesman for Philippine Coast Guard operations in the West Philippine Sea, lodged a complaint on Friday at the Manila prosecutor's office against Sass Rogando Sasot, a popular vlogger currently based in Beijing. The case is unprecedented: the first known libel lawsuit arising directly from the online information war surrounding the Philippines' increasingly fraught stand-off with China in the contested South China Sea According to Tarriela's complaint, Sasot falsely accused him on social media of receiving a US$4 million 'talent fee' from Washington, and of collecting bags of cash from the residence of House Speaker Martin Romualdez as payment for criticising Beijing's actions in the West Philippine Sea – Manila's term for the part of the South China Sea it claims as its own. She also alleged he had been expelled from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) for cheating. 02:09 China and Philippines clash over disputed Sandy Cay in the Spratly Islands China and Philippines clash over disputed Sandy Cay in the Spratly Islands In an interview with This Week in Asia, Tarriela said the accusations had taken a deep personal toll. 'Absolutely,' he said, when asked if the claims had affected his family.
ABC News
25-06-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Australian navy joins UK to conduct freedom of navigation exercises in contested South China Sea
An Australian naval destroyer has joined a British patrol vessel to conduct a freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea, in another sign Australia's military remains intent on pushing back on Beijing's claims over the contested waters. The UK Defence Ministry's Permanent Joint Headquarters publicised the operation on social media on Tuesday — although the Australian Defence Force has not announced it publicly and has not yet responded to the ABC's questions about the activity. "HMS SPEY and HMAS SYDNEY have just conducted Freedom of Navigation Activity around the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, in accordance with UNCLOS," it said on the social media site X. The two countries conducted the drill while much of the world's attention remains focused on the US strikes on Iran and the threat of a broader conflagration in the Middle East. Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea as its territory — despite a 2016 international ruling which found that claim invalid — and its navy and coast guard have repeatedly clashed with vessels from the Philippines, which is one of the South-East Asian nations which also has overlapping claims in the sea. China and the Philippines have also had several potentially dangerous aerial encounters over the South China Sea, including in February, when China's military said it had expelled three Philippine aircraft from the Spratly Islands. Australia has conducted freedom of navigation activities in the South China Sea with an expanding number of countries, including the US, Japan, Canada and the Philippines — which have all shown increasing resolve to assert their right to sail through the waters. But Euan Graham from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said it appeared to be the first time that the United Kingdom and Australia had conducted a publicly flagged freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea by themselves. He said both countries were "pushing back against China's excessive maritime claims and thickening military presence in the South China Sea" by asserting their right to navigation. Mr Graham said Canberra was signalling that China's recent partial circumnavigation of the Australian mainland would not deter it from continuing to operate in the South China Sea. Multiple Chinese analysts have suggested that Beijing was using the deployment to Australia to discourage the federal government from sending naval vessels into waters near China. "There's a sense that Australia is stepping up its game and being present (in the South China Sea) at a time when China's navy is exerting its presence close to Australia," Mr Graham said. The United Kingdom and Australia have already been stepping up joint naval activities in the region — including by taking part in an operation to enforce United Nations sanctions on North Korea. In February British and Australian ships also joined the United States Navy in the South China Sea to conduct a "coordinated manoeuvring exercise", and last week China lashed the United Kingdom after HMS Spey flagged that it was sailing through the Taiwan Strait. The British government has said that HMAS Sydney and HMS Spey will now sail to Singapore, where they will meet with the United Kingdom's carrier Prince of Wales and a Strike Group with a host of navy ships from the UK, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and Spain. The Carrier Strike Group will then sail down to the Northern Territory to join Operation Talisman Sabre — massive Australia-US joint military exercises which will also draw in forces from more than a dozen other nations. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the deployment of the carrier and other British naval vessels to the region — along with around 4,000 UK military personnel — is aimed at "sending a clear message of strength to our adversaries, and a message of unity and purpose to our allies".
South China Morning Post
12-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Grounded Chinese ship near Philippine-held island sparks concerns of more grey-zone tactics
A recent case of a Chinese militia vessel running aground on a strategic island in the disputed South China Sea has raised concerns from the Philippine side of another wave of so-called grey-zone activities by Beijing, even as Manila's officials acknowledge the incident could be down to inclement weather. Advertisement Observers point to the Philippines having adopted the same strategy to stake claim over the Second Thomas Shoal when it permanently grounded the war vessel BRP Sierra Madre in 1999. The recent incident involving a Chinese maritime militia vessel with bow number 16838 happened on June 7, just one nautical mile from Pagasa Island (Thitu Island), the largest land mass in the Philippine-claimed Kalayaan Island Group within the Spratly Islands, located 528km (328 miles) from the western island province of Palawan. Commodore Jay Tarriela, Philippine coastguard spokesman, in a social media post on Monday said the ship was likely to have been driven into the shallow area due to adverse sea conditions whipping up waves of up to three metres (9.8 feet) amid strong winds. According to Tarriela, Philippine personnel had tried to reach out to the crew of the stranded vessel and render support to prevent reef damage, but the Chinese side 'did not respond' and eventually freed themselves after three hours. Advertisement The incident happened more than a week after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned of a China threat in the region at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a major security summit in Singapore.
South China Morning Post
07-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Vietnam ramping up expansion of South China Sea outposts: Chinese think tank
Vietnam has continued to expand land reclamation on its occupied features in the South China Sea , with military-related construction of new ports and airstrips, according to a Chinese think tank. Advertisement Citing satellite images, the Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) said on Friday that Vietnam had reclaimed nearly 0.78 sq km (0.3 square miles) of land in the past six months on 11 features in the contested Spratly Islands, which are known as the Nansha Islands in China. In total, Vietnam had reclaimed over 8.5 sq km of new land on these features since October 2021, the think tank added in an English-language social media post. China and Vietnam have rival territorial claims in the South China Sea, particularly over the Spratly and Paracel islands. The reclamation focused not only on expanding the land area but also the construction of military-related facilities, such as harbour basins, wharves and runways , the think tank said in a separate post on Chinese social media. Advertisement These include an airstrip on the Spratlys' Barque Canada Reef that is expected to be about 3,000 metres (9,843 feet) long when completed. Sandbars that could accommodate runways had also been built on four other Spratly features: Pearson Reef, Tennent Reef, Ladd Reef and South Reef, the SCSPI said. South Reef is located just 50km (31 miles) north of the China-controlled Subi Reef.
South China Morning Post
07-06-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
Vietnam ramps up expansion of South China Sea outposts: think tank
Vietnam has continued to expand land reclamation on its occupied features in the South China Sea, with military-related construction of new ports and airstrips, according to a Chinese think tank. Citing satellite images, the Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) said on Friday that the Southeast Asian nation had reclaimed nearly 0.78 sq km (0.3 square miles) of land on 11 features in the contested Spratly Islands, known as the Nansha Islands in China, over the past six months. China and Vietnam have rival territorial claims in the South China Sea. In total, Vietnam has reclaimed over 8.5 sq km of new land on these features since October 2021, according to a social media post by the think tank. Vietnam has also stepped up construction of military-related facilities, such as harbour basins, wharves and runways , the think tank said in a separate post on Chinese social media. It said Vietnam was building an airstrip on Barque Canada Reef that is expected to be about 3,000 metres (9,843 feet) long when completed. It added that sandbars that could accommodate runways had also been built on four features, including Pearson Reef, Tennent Reef, Ladd Reef and South Reef.
