Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: South China Sea

Beijing’s A La Carte Approach to Foreign Policy

Beijing’s A La Carte Approach to Foreign Policy

Following the largely negative international reaction to its latest aggressive actions in Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, Beijing may be trying a new approach in settling longstanding territorial disputes with its neighbors.  On Monday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced China is prepared to resolve its border disputes with India by peaceful means, “Through years […]

read more

Rock, Paper, Scissors in the South China Sea

Rock, Paper, Scissors in the South China Sea

photo: WN.com Rock, paper, scissors is a popular game among youth in China, and can be played anywhere and anytime between two people.  In the game, both participants count to three and then reveal their hand – a fist symbolizes a rock, a flat hand is paper, and two fingers signify scissors.  The winner is […]

read more

Dr. Pamela Crossley on U.S.-China relations

Dr. Pamela Crossley on U.S.-China relations

Hosted by Sarwar Kashmeri, the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions podcast series will headline issues together with the leaders whose decisions today will mold the foreign policy of tomorrow. Each podcast will tackle a different Great Decisions topic in the 2014 series, a list of which can be found here. The Great Decisions podcasts can also be found […]

read more

As Beijing Asserts, Hanoi Reacts

As Beijing Asserts, Hanoi Reacts

This week, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung oversaw the launch of the Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance force, set up to ensure the enforcement of fishing laws in the East Sea, otherwise known as the South China Sea. As established under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the force will assist deep-sea fishermen and […]

read more

U.S. Secretary of Defense Hagel to Visit China

U.S. Secretary of Defense Hagel to Visit China

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is scheduled to travel to China next week for the first time as Secretary of Defense. Prior to that, Hagel will first travel to Hawai‘i where he will meet with nine of the ten defense ministers from ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), April 1-2. (Thailand’s defense minister, Yingluck […]

read more

GailForce: Thoughts on Our Pacific Maritime Strategy from AFCEA WEST 2014 Conference Part Two

GailForce:  Thoughts on Our Pacific Maritime Strategy from AFCEA WEST 2014 Conference Part Two

When discussing the Pacific region, a frequently mentioned concern on the part of Department of Defense and other government officials is China’s lack of transparency about its military modernization. During a presentation given at the AFCEA West Conference last month  Captain Jim Fanell, head of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet Intelligence Staff, remarked , “he didn’t know […]

read more

A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire

A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire

In the latest spark added to the ongoing fire over territorial waters in the South China Sea, a diplomatic protest was handed to Beijing’s charge d’affairs in Manila on Tuesday. The move follows the alleged firing of a water cannon by a Chinese government vessel on January 27 to drive away two Filipino fishing boats […]

read more

Sovereingty questions at sea: China’s maritime claims

Sovereingty questions at sea: China’s maritime claims

Who owns the ocean? In reference to the water south of China, it depends on who you ask. Newer claims by China would extend its sovereignty well south to the island of Borneo, passing by Vietnam, Malaysia, and Philippines in the process. Let’s a take a look at what’s gone on and what it says […]

read more

The Pentagon Flies in the Face of Beijing’s New Air Defense Zone

The Pentagon Flies in the Face of Beijing’s New Air Defense Zone

In a rare slap in the face to Beijing, last week the U.S. flew two of its unarmed B-52 bombers into China’s newly-established East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone.  The air defense zone had been recently created in order to assert Beijing’s claim to disputed territorial waters of the East China Sea and to […]

read more

Beijing loses face in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan

Beijing loses face in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan

photo: Associated Press Chinese president Xi Jinping and premier Li Keqiang’s diplomatic offensive in Southeast Asia reaped benefits last month, as Beijing reached agreement with Vietnam to form a working group to jointly explore the waters of the disputed South China Sea.  Beijing seems to have copied Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” in the wake of […]

read more

ASEAN again seeking Code of Conduct

ASEAN again seeking Code of Conduct

A quick glance at the above map is enough to boggle anyone’s senses, but these lines are likely to be heavily debated by officials from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, following meetings over last weekend. Senior Asean officials and China yesterday agreed to speed up the process of finishing the […]

read more

Manila reacts to China’s South Sea Aggression

Manila reacts to China’s South Sea Aggression

photo by Getty Images Beijing’s recent actions to extend its naval presence in the South and East China Sea, coupled with a perceived reluctance to solve territorial claims, is seriously undermining security among its neighbors, especially in the Philippines. Last year, in the waters Manila refers to as the West Philippine Sea, China’s occupied the […]

read more

China’s Challenges in Central Asia

China’s Challenges in Central Asia

Just when things are hotting up again with its neighbors in the East and South China Seas, Beijing faces new challenges from its western neighbors in Central Asia.  A report released on February 27 entitled “China’s Central Asia Problem” issued by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based non-governmental organization tasked with reducing deadly conflict, […]

read more

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Here on the tranquil island of Palawan, in the West Philippine Sea, the arrival of Chinese naval vessels  is causing quite some anxiety among local residents.  Last Friday, three ships from the Peoples Liberation Army Navy’s North China Sea fleet, the missile destroyer Qingdao and missile frigates Yantai and Yancheng, traveled through the Bashi Channel, […]

read more

Philippine government alarmed over Chinese patrol ship

Philippine government alarmed over Chinese patrol ship

Last Wednesday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario asked China to explain its deployment of a patrol ship to guard disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea. The Chinese patrol ship left Hainan island for the South China Sea on Dec. 27, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. The move by China comes […]

read more

About Us

Foreign Policy Blogs is a network of global affairs blogs and a supplement to the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions program. Staffed by professional contributors from the worlds of journalism, academia, business, non-profits and think tanks, the FPB network tracks global developments on Great Decisions 2014 topics, daily. The FPB network is a production of the Foreign Policy Association.