Latest news with #maritimeDispute
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.
South China Morning Post
05-06-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
With 50 years of history, Manila and Beijing should do better diplomacy
June 9 marks the 50th anniversary of Philippines-China relations , ties steeped in history but marred by friction in recent years. Sadly, an overemphasis on the intractable sea dispute has polluted broader connections, stunting economic cooperation and stigmatising people-to-people exchanges. This is irrational and unproductive. For Manila to make the sea row front and centre of ties is a tragedy of its foreign policy. For China to see its smaller neighbour as a mere pawn in its great power competition with Washington is a recipe for misunderstanding; it lets down Beijing's neighbourhood diplomacy. Allowing security issues to dominate relations is neither wise nor strategic. Confining ties to maritime tensions, alleged spying and influence operations limits their scope and potential. Describing your big neighbour as an adversary can be a dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy. Increasing pressure on a smaller neighbour may push it deeper into a rival's embrace. Other Southeast Asian coastal states with similar concerns assign less publicity to their sea rows and employ more effective strategies. Manila and Beijing should do better diplomacy. First, there are many areas where the two can work together without compromising their positions. China is the world's greatest economic miracle, lifting 800 million people out of poverty in four decades. It is the world's largest consumer and tourism market, a rising investor, the biggest producer of renewable energy and electric vehicles , and a leading player in mineral processing.
Globe and Mail
04-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
B.C. port supervisors' union ratifies new four-year deal with maritime employers
Maritime employers in British Columbia and the union representing port supervisors say they have ratified a new four-year collective agreement, after a dispute that saw workers locked out of container terminals last year. The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Ship and Dock Foremen Local 514 say the new collective agreement extends from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2027. They say in a joint statement that they look forward to working together to implement the agreement. The federal government had stepped in on Nov. 12 after B.C. ports were paralyzed by the dispute, directing the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order the resumption of all operations and move talks to binding arbitration. The employers had locked out members of Local 514 on Nov. 4 in what they called a defensive action. Container cargo traffic at terminals on the West Coast were halted in the dispute involving more than 700 longshore supervisors.
Associated Press
30-05-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Japan Coast Guard rescues injured crew from Chinese ship near contested waters
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's coast guard has dispatched a patrol vessel to rescue an injured crewmember of a Chinese survey ship in the contested waters in southwestern Japan, officials said Friday. The Chinese survey ship Ke Xue requested the rescue by the Japan Coast Guard on Wednesday, saying that one of the crewmembers suffered a hand injury during the survey operation in the area off the southern coast of Miyako Island, according to the JCG. The JCG patrol vessel picked up the crewmember, a Chinese national in his 40s, from the survey ship and transported him to Naha on the main Okinawa island for hospital treatment. The Ke Xue is one of a number of Chinese survey vessels that operate in waters in the East China Sea, where China has increasingly stepped up maritime activity and routinely sends survey vessels, coast guard ships, as well as warships and aircraft, often violating Japanese territorial waters and airspace. Japanese officials said that on Monday, another Chinese survey ship lowered a wire into the sea known as the Japanese exclusive economic zone — an area where Japan claims rights to conduct economic activity — east of Japan's southernmost island of Okinotorishima, without permission from the Japanese government. The JCG patrol aircraft warned the survey ship to move out of the waters, and the Japanese government lodged a protest to the Chinese side.
Asharq Al-Awsat
29-05-2025
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Philippines Says China Has No Right to Object or Interfere with Its ‘Lawful' Activities in South China Sea
The Philippine foreign ministry said on Thursday that China has no right to object to or interfere with its lawful and routine activities in the South China Sea. The ministry said it also "rejects and refutes" recent statements of the Chinese embassy in Manila that Beijing has indisputable sovereignty over the Spratly islands. The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and China between them have claims and a presence on dozens of features in the Spratly archipelago, ranging from reefs and rocks to islands, natural and artificial. China's manmade islands there include runways, radar towers, ports and missile systems. "We urge China to respect the Philippines' sovereignty and jurisdiction, even as we continue to pursue peaceful and legal means to manage differences and the situation at sea," foreign ministry spokesperson Teresita Daza said in a statement. China and the Philippines traded accusations last week following a confrontation between two of their vessels in contested waters of the South China Sea, the latest incident in a long-running row in the strategic waterway. The Philippines' fisheries bureau said the lives of a civilian crew were put at risk when the Chinese coast guard fired water cannons and sideswiped a vessel as it conducted marine research around a disputed reef. The Chinese coast guard said two Philippine vessels had illegally entered waters near Subi Reef, a Chinese-built artificial island, and organized personnel to land on the unoccupied sandbars of Sandy Cay. "The Philippines is clearly within its rights to conduct routine maritime operations and scientific research in and around these features, and will continue to do so," Daza said. "China has no right to object much less interfere with these lawful and routine activities." China claims sovereignty over nearly all the South China Sea, including parts of the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. An international arbitral tribunal in 2016 said Beijing's expansive claim has no basis under international law. The Chinese embassy in its statement sent to media on Monday said the Philippines had since January made 27 "unauthorized landings" on features, despite a 2002 agreement among Southeast Asian countries and China to refrain from doing so.
