Thứ Hai, 18 tháng 7, 2016

China to close part of South China Sea for military exercise

CHRISTOPHER BODEEN,Associated Press 5 hours ago 
BEIJING (AP) — China is closing off a part of the South China Sea for military exercises this week, the government said Monday, days after an international tribunal ruled against Beijing's claim to ownership of virtually the entire strategic waterway.
Hainan's maritime administration said an area southeast of the island province would be closed from Monday to Thursday, but gave no details about the nature of the exercises. The navy and Defense Ministry had no immediate comment.
Six governments claim territory in the South China Sea, although the area where the Chinese naval exercises are being held is not considered a particular hotspot. China's navy and coast guard operate extensively throughout the South China Sea and regularly stage live firing exercises in the area.
The announcement of the drills came in the middle of a three-day visit to China by the U.S. Navy's top admiral, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, to discuss the South China Sea dispute and ways to boost interactions between the two militaries.
Although the tribunal's ruling was likely to be raised in Richardson's discussions, the head of the Chinese navy, Adm. Wu Shengli, did not mention it directly in opening remarks before reporters at a meeting Monday between the two men at navy headquarters in Beijing.
State broadcaster CCTV later reported that Wu reiterated China's determination to defend all of its territorial claims in the South China Sea and would not permit its interests to be infringed on, a standard position for Chinese officials.
China rejected last Tuesday's ruling by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration in a case initiated by the Philippines, and refused to take part in the arbitration. It asserts that islands in the South China Sea are "China's inherent territory," and says it could declare an air defense identification zone over the waters if it felt threatened.
In the days following the ruling, Beijing landed two civilian aircraft on new airstrips on disputed Mischief and Subi reefs and dispatched its coast guard to block Philippine fishing boats from a contested shoal.
In a further development, Chinese air force spokesman Shen Jinke was quoted by state media as saying that air force fighters and bombers had recently conducted patrols over the South China Sea and would make that "a regular practice" in future.
The tribunal ruled that China violated international maritime law by building up artificial islands in the South China Sea that destroyed coral reefs, and by disrupting fishing and oil exploration.
China's island development has inflamed regional tensions, with many fearing that Beijing will use the construction of new islands complete with airfields and military facilities to extend its military reach and perhaps try to restrict navigation.
Several times in the past year, U.S. warships have deliberately sailed close to one of those islands to exercise freedom of navigation and challenge the claims. In response, China has deployed fighter jets and ships to track and warn off the American ships, and accused the U.S. of threatening its national security.

Freedom of navigation patrols may end 'in disaster': Chinese admiral

By Ben Blanchard,Reuters 4 hours ago 

Thứ Sáu, 15 tháng 7, 2016



Boisée (Woody) Island or Phú Lȃm Island of the Paracels  Archipelago
belonged to Vietnam was invaded and occupied illegally by the Republic of China (Chiang Kai Check) in 1947 after the Japanese left Indochina .  Map US Marine 1944. Edited by Hoàng Hoa www.saigonfilms.com. Map Chart 5496 Copyrighted © by the US Marine 1944.
 
 

Caught between a reef and a hard place, Manila's South China Sea victory runs aground


https://www.yahoo.com/news/caught-between-reef-hard-place-manilas-south-china-034130348.html

By Greg Torode and Manuel Mogato,Reuters
HONG KONG/MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines may have won an emphatic legal victory over China in the South China Sea, but the aptly named Mischief Reef shows just how hard it will be for Manila to make its triumph count in the strategic waterway.
Chinese construction on the reef, which began two decades ago as a few rickety shelters perched on stilts, now covers an area larger than 500 football fields. It includes a 3 km (9,800 feet) runway, extensive housing, parade grounds and radar nests, satellite images show.
According to Tuesday's landmark ruling, however, the reef and everything on it legally belongs to the Philippines and no amount of time or building will change that.
Publicly, Manila has been unusually cautious in its response to the sweeping ruling, urging "restraint and sobriety". In private, officials acknowledge they have little hope of recovering Mischief Reef any time soon despite the unequivocal ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
"This will take time, not in the next five or 10 years," said one senior Philippine navy official, requesting anonymity to speak freely on the highly sensitive matter.
It was, he said, "impossible to evict the Chinese there".
RESOLUTE RESPONSE
Beijing, which boycotted the case from the outset, says the ruling has no bearing on its rights in the South China Sea and has reasserted it claims to Mischief and other features.
On Thursday, the state-run People's Daily ran a picture on its front page of a civilian aircraft landing at the new Mischief airport, two Chinese flags rippling from the cockpit.
"As I've said before, it won't have any effect," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, when asked if China would seek to bolster its sovereignty over Mischief Reef.
"At the same time, I want to stress that if any person wants to take the outcome of this arbitration as a basis for taking any provocative steps against China's interests, China will most certainly resolutely respond," Lu told reporters.
With the panel having no powers to enforce its ruling, mainland experts see no sign that China will scale back its actions across the South China Sea.
"The tribunal's decision is so sweeping that it is not going to help solve the problem," said Sienho Yee, an international law specialist at China's Wuhan University.
Other Chinese experts, speaking privately, said the ruling was being closely scrutinized, despite official statements dismissing its relevance.
Some among leadership elites had been "stung" by its comprehensive stance against China.
"There is surprise at the extent of the sheer arrogance of these judges sitting (in Europe) deciding what is a rock and what is an island," said one Beijing-based scholar.
"It can only serve to unify our leadership and harden Chinese views, and that includes the military leadership. There will be little appetite to take a step back."
Manila's "softly, softly" approach reflected its understanding of that risk, Philippine officials said.
"We should find ways to allow some face-saving actions because China could face tremendous domestic pressure," the Philippine navy official said. "We don't want the Chinese Communist Party to be overthrown by the more hot-headed people in the People's Liberation Army. That will be too dangerous."
President Xi Jinping has moved extensively to tighten his grip on power since assuming office almost four years ago and there has been no sign of any such action.
NOTHING MORE THAN SEABED
The decision on Mischief Reef is among the most significant within the 479-page judgment from the panel, which looked at the territorial rights of disputed reefs, rocks and shoals scattered throughout the key trade route.
At a stroke, the court dismissed Beijing's 69-year-old nine-dash line claim to much of the South China Sea and removed any legal basis for Beijing to create a network of linked territorial and economic seas under its control, legal experts said.
Mischief is China's eastern most holding in the resource-rich waterway. Some 300 km (185 miles) west of the Philippines' island of Palawan and 1,100 km (685 miles) from China's Hainan Island, it sits entirely within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone and on its continental shelf.
The panel ruled China's building of installations on reclaimed land, which accelerated sharply after 2014, was illegal and had "aggravated" the dispute under the U.N Convention on the Law of the Sea, under which Manila launched the case in 2013.
The judges backed Philippines' lawyers who used satellite, survey and historical data, including Chinese naval pilot notes, to show Mischief Reef is - legally at least - nothing more than seabed exposed at low tide.
The lawyers gave evidence that its traditional Chinese name - Mi Qi Fu - was based on Mischief's English name, according to court transcripts, seeking to undermine China's argument that it had been, in its words, "master" of the South China Sea for 2,000 years. China calls it Meiji Reef today.
POTENTIAL FLASHPOINT
Regional military officials and diplomats say Mischief is a clear flashpoint in what is expected to be months of tension after the ruling.
Others include Scarborough Shoal, a traditional Philippine fishing ground that was occupied by China in 2012, and Second Thomas Shoal, where a small group of Philippine soldiers is based in the rusting hulk of a grounded ship.
The United States is also watching Mischief closely and has repeatedly warned China against further development of islands within the waters of the Philippines, a formal security ally.
U.S. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan demanded on Wednesday that U.S. ships sail close to Mischief as part of pledged increases in so-called freedom-of-navigation operations.
A U.S. defense official also told Reuters that, if regional competition escalated into confrontation, U.S. naval and air forces were prepared to act to maintain free navigation.
Manila is clear it doesn't want to provoke China further.
"They are a bit angry now," Philippines' Defence Minister Delfin Lorenzana told Reuters. "Emotions are running high and we don't want to provide them any reason to react violently."
(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Martin Petty in MANILA; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Thứ Năm, 14 tháng 7, 2016

Yêu Cầu MapQuest.com không dùng chữ Tàu trên Bản đồ



Yêu Cầu MapQuest.com không dùng chữ Tàu trên Bản đồ  

tên đảo Woodland là Nansha và không dùng chữ Tàu cho một số đảo thuộc quần đảo Trường Sa (Spratly Islands) của Việt Nam Cộng Hòa


Toàn Văn Phán Quyết của Tòa Án Trung Gian Hòa Giải Le Hague July 12, 2016 về Vụ Kiện của Phi Luật Tân đối với Trung Cộng

Toàn văn này bằng Anh ngữ, nhưng ch’ng tôi sẽ cố gắng dịch sang Việt ngữ trong thời gian tới để người Việt Nam đọc hiểu.
PDF file:

Hoàng Hoa

Thứ Tư, 13 tháng 7, 2016

What the South China Sea ruling means for the world

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/13/what-the-south-china-sea-ruling-means-for-the-world/

verdict delivered by an international court in The Hague sent geopolitical shock waves through Asia.
The panel of judges at the Permanent Court of Arbitration said China's exclusive claims to a vast swath of territory in the South China Sea had no historical or legal basis, siding with the Philippines in a case that Manila had brought to the court in 2013 over China's expansive moves into a number of disputed islands and shoals.
The South China Sea is one of the world's most strategic bodies of water and remains a vital conduit for a huge proportion of global shipping. But it's also now perhaps the most treacherous flash point in the world, with the overlapping claims of half a dozen Asian governments constantly creating regional friction.
In recent times, separate disputes between China and the Philippines and Vietnam have led to minor skirmishes and naval standoffs. China, as The Washington Post has documented over the past year, has steadily sought to change the facts on the ground (or on the waves) in its favor, establishing military bases and building up new islands in areas under its control. The United States, meanwhile,recently deployed aircraft carriers to the region, a somewhat striking move.
The Chinese have long claimed virtually the entire South China Sea and the barren rocks and islands within it as their sovereign territory. The court, though, ruled against the legitimacy of China's "nine-dash line" -- marked on the map below -- which Beijing routinely invokes as the demarcation of its historical claim over the sea.