SouthChinaSea.com | Website on the South China Sea

China’s increasing militarization and persistent maritime claims against Vietnam threaten not only that country, but the international rule-based system of international law developed over the last century.

The League of Nations, founded in 1919, and the United Nations, founded in 1945, were meant to be rule-based systems to decrease the risk of military conflict. [READ MORE]

HANOI • France and other countries should help to keep the peace in the disputed South China Sea, Vietnam's President said yesterday, as unease grows over China's increasingly muscular approach in the key waterway.

China claims most of the sea where it has built up reefs capable of hosting military equipment, sparking ire from competing claimants, including Vietnam. [READ MORE]

The secretive communist government of Laos, a country with a population of less than 7 million, rarely causes a ripple on the diplomatic circuit. And yet its sleepy capital will spring to life next week when global leaders arrive for an Asian summit.

Barack Obama will be among them, making the last push of his presidency to rebalance Washington's foreign policy toward Asia, a strategy widely seen as a response to China's economic and military muscle-flexing across the region. [READ MORE]

(Bloomberg) — The spyware used in cyber attacks on Vietnam’s major airports and national carrier last month is now suspected of having bombarded many more official sites, amid tensions with China over territory in the disputed South China Sea.

A malicious code disguised as anti-virus software found lurking in everything from government offices to banks, major companies and universities was the same as that used in “politically-colored” attacks on two of the country’s biggest airports and Vietnam Airlines, said Ngo Tuan Anh, vice chairman of Hanoi-based network security company Bkav Corp. [READ MORE]

The countries of Southeast Asia have long sought progress toward a position of greater institutional unity in addressing regional security concerns.

In 2009, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed on a Political-Security Community Blueprint, which stated that member states, “regard their security as fundamentally linked to one another, bound by geographical location, common vision, and objectives.” [READ MORE]

On July 12, an International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ruling dismissed much of China’s claim to the South China Sea. Since then, there has been a great deal of discussion on the legal ramifications, China’s response and public opinion.

But where does this ruling leave the U.S. alliance with the Philippines — the country that challenged China’s claims in the first place? [READ MORE]

When President Xi Jinping of China visited President Obama at the White House last September, he startled many with reassuring words about his intentions for the Spratly Islands, a contested area where the Chinese government has been piling dredged sand and concrete atop reefs for the past few years and building housing and runways on them.

“China does not intend to pursue militarization,” Mr. Xi said, referring to the area as the Nansha Islands, a Chinese name for what most of the rest of the world calls the Spratlys in the South China Sea. [READ MORE]

On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague announced the much-awaited verdict in the case on South China Sea.

As anticipated, the decision was in the favour of the Philippines and the PCA dismissed the Chinese sovereignty claims in a 501-page long ruling. [READ MORE]

This February and April, the deployment of long range HQ-9 SAM’s (200km) and sixteen J-11Bs to Woody Island in the South China Sea has also evoked a diplomatic protest from Vietnam.

Today, Sino-Vietnamese relations are again hitting a low point, particularly due to the South China Sea dispute. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s external threat has always been China. [READ MORE]

At the time, I was on active military duty serving as Fleet Intelligence Watch Officer for the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet aboard the flagship USS Blue Ridge, responsible for managing a team that provided the fleet commander with real-time situational awareness throughout Asia.

Those experiences—not least those weird sea creatures—offer several insights into U.S.-China relations, including the July international tribunal decision against Chinese actions in the South China Sea. [READ MORE]