What can the international community do to thwart China’s unilateral attempts at territorial expansion? Lodging protests against the construction of military installations on artificial islands has not been very effective to date. But more can probably be done to prevent China from reclaiming any more reefs and building airfields on them. Greater US engagement would significantly facilitate such efforts, and Japan, too, has an important role to play.

The Philippines' decision to join China's multilateral development bank marks Manila's renewed effort to befriend Beijing via “economic diplomacy” despite the South China Sea dispute, an analyst said.

After efforts to remold security policy and gain traction in diplomacy toward Asia and dealing with wartime history disputes in 2015, Japanese policymakers face even greater challenges on the international stage in the coming year.

A year and a half since China began rapidly building and militarizing artificial islands in the contested, resource-rich waters of the South China Sea, the states most threatened by Chinese expansion are looking for ways to push back more forcefully. 

The arena for this convergence of two words- science and diplomacy- was displayed at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Washington symposium, where marine science, and the emergence of China’s ‘blue economy’ framed a new narrative in understanding the environmental stakes in the region’s escalating conflict. 

Formal diplomacy and tiptoeing around protocols are not going to help the Philippines thwart a bristling giant encroaching on its waters and islands, according to former senator and veteran diplomat Leticia Ramos-Shahani. Shahani, who is ailing, delivered a fiery speech at the launch of P1NAS, a new alliance to defend Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity, and strengthen efforts to forge an independent foreign policy.“We need a mass movement,” she said. “Citizen diplomacy is needed to thwart the power play in the West Philippine Sea.”

BEIJING — Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi squared off in talks Saturday over China asserting sovereignty onman-made islands it is creating near heavily trafficked sea lanes in the South China Sea.

First and foremost, the Maritime Silk Road is designed to pacify neighboring countries threatened by China’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea. Curiously, China has attempted to both aggravate tensions among its Southeast Asian neighbors and soothe them at the same time, contrary to its normal pattern of swinging back and forth between aggressive brinksmanship and diplomatic rapprochement (such as in China’s relationship with Taiwan or its cutting off and then reestablishing of military-to-military ties with the United States).