Beijing will establish a military garrison on a group of disputed islands in the South China Sea, the Chinese Ministry of Defense said yesterday, a move likely to provoke further tensions with its neighbors.
The troops will operate from Sansha in the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), one of two archipelagos in the South China Sea that are claimed by both China and Vietnam.
The garrison, approved by the Central Military Commission, “will be responsible for the Sansha area national defense mobilization and reserve forces activities,” the Chinese Ministry of Defense said on its Web site.
The ministry did not say when the garrison would be established, but the move to station troops on the Paracels is likely to provoke Hanoi’s ire.
Beijing’s move last month to designate Sansha as its administrative center for the Paracels and the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) prompted a rare demonstration on Sunday in Hanoi. China and South Vietnam once administered different parts of the Paracels, but after a brief conflict in 1974, Beijing took control of the entire group of islands. Vietnam holds several of the larger Spratly Islands.
China says it owns much of the South China Sea, while Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia each claim portions.
Disputes have flared in recent weeks, with Vietnam and the Philippines criticizing what they call Chinese encroachment.
Meanwhile, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III refused to budge yesterday on the Philippines’ territorial dispute with China, asking Beijing to respect Manila’s rights in the South China Sea and announcing plans to upgrade military capabilities.
Addressing a joint session of the Philippine Congress for the third time since his election in 2010, Aquino asked the Philippine people to unite behind his government’s efforts to resolve the dispute peacefully.
“If someone enters your yard and told you he owns it, will you allow that?” Aquino asked. “It’s not right to give away what is rightfully ours. And so I ask for solidarity from our people regarding this issue. Let us speak with one voice.”
Aquino said the Philippines had shown restraint by pulling out its navy ship and replacing it with a civilian vessel when Chinese fishing boats entered the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) area, which lies in the South China Sea about 124 nautical miles (230km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.
The Philippines says it has sole jurisdiction over the uninhabited shoal because it lies within the country’s 322km exclusive economic zone.
“It’s not too much to ask the other side to respect our rights just as we respected their rights,” Aquino said, adding that as the nation’s leader: “I must uphold the law of the land.”
Philippine officials say they are worried by China’s “creeping imposition” of its claims in disputed areas in the South China Sea, a violation of an informal code of conduct adopted in Cambodia in 2002.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS