JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s anti-graft court sentenced a former agriculture minister to 10 years in prison Thursday after finding him guilty of corruption-related extortion, abuse of power and bribery involving ministry contracts with private vendors.

The case has tarnished President Joko Widodo’s credibility in fighting corruption. Five other members of Widodo’s Cabinet have been sentenced to prison terms in corruption cases, casting a shadow over his efforts to clean up government while his term will end in October.

The court in the capital, Jakarta, ruled that the former Cabinet minister, Syahrul Yasin Limpo, was guilty of abusing his power by enriching himself and other officials. It also ordered him to pay a $18,500 fine and said he would be subject to another four months’ imprisonment if he fails to pay.

“The defendant has legally and convincingly been proven guilty of corruption,” presiding Judge Rianto Adam Pontoh said. “He wasn’t a good example as a public official, what he has done is counter the government’s efforts to fight corruption and enriched himself by corruption.”

Limpo had been arrested last October by the Corruption Eradication Commission, known as the KPK. He has denied wrongdoing.

Several ministry officials testified during the trial that secretariats, directorates general and agencies within the ministry were required to give up 20% of their budgets to Limpo, as though they were indebted to him, and he threated their jobs if they rejected his demands. Vendors and suppliers were also asked to set aside money to fulfill the then-minister’s demands, the trial revealed.

Limpo used the money on luxurious cars, gifts and apartments, charter private jets, family parties and gatherings, and for religious observances and pilgrimages. Limpo also used the bribes to disburse humanitarian aid for disaster victims and to his Nasdem political party.

Prosecutors, who sought 12 years imprisonment for Limpo, said the politician accepted a total of $2.7 million between January 2020 and October 2023.

In their indictment, prosecutors accused Limpo of ordering his two subordinates, Kasdi Subagyono and Muhammad Hatta, to collect the illicit money. They were each sentenced to four years in prison in separate cases.

During the trial, Limpo said he was the victim of political persecution and felt that he had been slandered by his subordinates in his ministry who feared being replaced or removed from their position.

“I never received any information about their objection to any of my orders,” Limpo said. “If they think it’s wrong, they should consult and discuss with me first.”

Widodo campaigned in part on a pledge to run a clean government in a country that ranked 115th out of 180 nations in the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International.

Limpo, a former South Sulawesi governor, is the second politician from the Nasdem Party to face recent prosecution. Johnny G. Plate, a former communication minister, was sentenced to 15 years in prison over $533 million in graft of the construction of mobile phone transmission towers in remote parts of the country.

Corruption is endemic in Indonesia and the anti-graft commission, one of the few effective institutions in the country of nearly 270 million people, is frequently under attack by lawmakers who want to reduce its powers.

The KPK has arrested around 250 members of the local parliament, as many as 133 regents and mayors as well as 18 governors, 83 members of the national parliament and 12 ministers since the institution was founded in late 2003.
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Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwan’s defense ministry said Thursday it had detected 66 Chinese military aircraft around the island in a 24-hour window, a record-high this year, a day after it said Beijing was conducting exercises in nearby waters.

China claims self-ruled democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and has said it will never renounce the use of force to bring it under its control.

Thursday’s record follows Taipei, a day earlier, spotting Chinese aircraft around the island that it said were headed to the western Pacific for exercises with the PLA aircraft carrier Shandong.

“66 PLA aircraft and seven PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 am (2200 GMT Wednesday) today,” the defense ministry said in Thursday’s statement.

Fifty-six of the aircraft crossed the sensitive median line bisecting the Taiwan Strait — a narrow 180-kilometer waterway separating the island from China.

The ministry added it had “monitored the situation and responded accordingly.”

An illustration it released showed some of the aircraft came within 61 km of Taiwan’s southern tip.

The year’s previous record was in May, when Beijing sent 62 military aircraft and 27 naval vessels around Taiwan.

That occurred in the middle of war games Beijing launched on the heels of the inauguration of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, who Beijing regards as a “dangerous separatist.”

Military expert Su Tzu-yun said China’s latest show of force was a reaction to recent political developments, including Washington’s new de facto ambassador to Taiwan meeting with and expressing support for Taipei during a meeting with Lai on Wednesday.

“Beijing puts pressure on Taiwan in order to express its displeasure at the support it enjoys,” said Su of Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research. 

Taiwan defense minister Wellington Koo on Wednesday noted that the Shandong had not passed “through the Bashi Channel,” the area off Taiwan’s southern tip where Chinese ships typically transit en route to the Pacific Ocean.

Instead, it “went further south through the Balingtang Channel towards the Western Pacific,” he said, referring to a waterway just north of the Philippines’ Babuyan Island, about 250 kilometers south of Bashi.

Neighboring Japan on Tuesday confirmed that four PLA navy vessels, including the Shandong, were sailing 520 kilometers southeast of Miyako island.

“Fighter aircraft and helicopters” had been seen taking off from and landing on the Shandong,” it said.

The Philippines’ military public affairs chief said they had received reports of a China-Russia exercise taking place in the Philippine Sea but did not comment about the Shandong directly.

Tensions between Manila and Beijing have grown following a series of escalating confrontations over the hotly disputed South China Sea.
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Yangon, Myanmar — Myanmar ethnic minority fighters said on Wednesday they have seized a town along a key trade highway to China following days of clashes with junta troops. 

The town of Naungcho “is totally ours,” General Tar Bhone Kyaw of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) told AFP.  

Earlier Wednesday a military source told AFP that ethnic minority fighters were in control of “most” of Naungcho. 

Myanmar’s northern Shan state has been rocked by clashes since late last month when an alliance of ethnic armed groups renewed an offensive along the highway that runs from second city Mandalay to China’s Yunnan province. 

Naungcho is around 50 kilometers along the highway from the former British hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin, home to the military’s elite officer training academy.  

Another road from the town leads to Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state.  

AFP was unable to reach a junta spokesman for comment.  

Myanmar’s borderlands are home to myriad ethnic armed groups who have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 for autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
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MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine senate threatened on Wednesday to arrest a small town mayor for contempt during a hearing investigating her alleged ties with Chinese criminal syndicates, a case that has captivated the nation amid tension between Manila and Bejing.

The arrest threat came after the mayor, Alice Guo, failed to appear for a second consecutive hearing, citing stress.

The case that began in March, when authorities raided a casino in Guo’s sleepy farming town of Bamban, has shed light on criminal activity in the mostly Chinese-backed online casino industry in the Philippines.

It gained national attention after one senator questioned whether Guo might not have been born in the Philippines and could even be a Chinese “asset” an accusation she denied.

She has also denied links to criminals, saying she is a natural-born Philippine citizen. Guo did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment but wrote to the senate that she was the subject of “malicious accusations.”

On Wednesday, the senate cited Guo in contempt for failing to appear and Senator Risa Hontiveros, who is leading the investigation, said she would set in motion steps to get a warrant for her arrest.

“The chair has ruled to cite them in contempt,” said Hontiveros, who told a previous hearing that Guo might have actually been born in China and be a Chinese “asset,” although she gave no proof.

Raid raises questions

The investigation began after a police raid revealed a scam center operating out of a facility built on land partially owned by Guo. It was one of many that have sprung up across Southeast Asia in recent years.

The raid uncovered hundreds of trafficked workers including foreign nationals, spurring a human trafficking complaint against Guo from an agency battling organized crime.

Guo has said she sold her stake in the business before she was elected in 2022 and had no knowledge of criminality.

Officials have turned a searchlight on her background since.

The National Bureau of Investigation said Guo’s fingerprints matched those of a Chinese national who entered the country as a teenager.

The solicitor general is seeking to cancel her birth certificate and she has been suspended from her post during the investigation. The senate committee urged the immigration agency to stop Guo from leaving the Philippines.

Guo’s attorney, Stephen David, told radio station DWPM she had been “traumatized” by previous sessions but had assured him she was still in the Philippines.

“If she gets arrested and detained at the senate, then she will testify,” he said.

Earlier hearings grilled Guo about her background and a lack of records regarding her presence in the Philippines. After she was unable to recall details of her childhood, Hontiveros asked if she was an “asset” for China.

In May, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told reporters, “No one knows her. We wonder where she came from. That’s why we are investigating this, together with the Bureau of Immigration, because of the questions about her citizenship.”

The mayor has denied she is a spy, saying in a television interview that she was a simple Philippine citizen, the love child of her Chinese father with a maid, and who had grown up “hidden” on a pig farm and homeschooled, with no friends.

Guo’s case comes at a time of growing Philippine suspicion about China’s activities following an increasingly tense dispute over reefs and shoals in the busy waterway of the South China Sea, where both nations have claims.

It has boosted calls for a crackdown on Philippine offshore gambling operators, or POGOs, mostly run by Chinese nationals to serve clients in China, which flourished during the tenure of former President Rodrigo Duterte, but have since drawn scrutiny.
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TOKYO — Eight years ago, Yuriko Koike became the first woman to lead Tokyo, beating her male predecessor. She won her third term as governor Sunday, and one of her closest rivals was a woman.

Multiple women competing for a top political office is still rare in Japan, which has a terrible global gender-equality ranking, but Koike’s win highlights a gradual rise in powerful female officials and a society more open to gender balance in politics. That said, even if a woman eventually becomes prime minister, politics here is still overwhelmingly dominated by men, and experts see a huge effort needed for equal representation.

“There are growing expectations for women to play a greater role in politics,” said parliamentarian Chinami Nishimura, a senior official with the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. “In politics or parliament, which are still largely considered men’s work, it is extremely meaningful for women to show their presence and have our voices heard.”

Nishimura, who also heads the opposition party’s gender-equality promotion team, hopes to have women make up 30% of her party’s candidates in the next national election. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party last year vowed to achieve 30% female representation within 10 years and is working to recruit more female candidates.

Finding aspiring female candidates, however, isn’t easy. Women in Japan are still often expected to be in charge of childrearing, elderly care and other family responsibilities.

National parliamentarians are also expected to regularly travel between Tokyo and their home constituencies, which makes it especially difficult for female lawmakers trying to balance a career and family. Nishimura says former female colleagues have quit national politics and returned to local assemblies because of such demands.

Nishimura began her political career in her hometown Niigata’s prefectural assembly in 1999, the first woman to serve there in decades. The 53-member assembly now has five women.

A growing number of women are now seeking political careers, but they are still in the minority, especially in national politics where electoral decisions are largely determined by closed-door, male-dominated party politics, and outspoken women tend to be targets.

One of Koike’s top rivals was a woman, Renho, a veteran former parliamentarian who goes by one name and who finished third. Renho told reporters last month that she often saw headlines about the Tokyo governor’s race that trumpeted “A battle of dragon women.”

“Would you use that kind of expression to describe a competition between male candidates?” she asked.

Koike, a stylish, media-savvy former television newscaster, was first elected to parliament in 1992 at age 40. She served in several key Cabinet posts, including as environment minister and defense chief, for the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, before becoming Tokyo governor in 2016.

Renho, known for asking sharp questions in parliament, was born to a Japanese mother and Taiwanese father. A former model and newscaster, she was elected to parliament in 2004 and served as administrative reform minister in the government led by the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan.

Attacks on Renho’s aggressive image were a clear example of gender bias in a society that expects female candidates to be “motherly or cute,” said Chiyako Sato, a Mainichi Shimbun editorial writer and a commentator on politics.

Because of a small female presence in politics, powerful women tend to get excessive attention. Their presence in Tokyo governor’s election “conveyed a positive message that women can become political leaders, but a large amount of the noise about them also reflected Japan’s sad reality,” said Mari Miura, a Sophia University professor and expert on gender and politics.

For instance, a survey of national and local lawmakers in 2022 conducted by a civil group showed one-third of about 100 female respondents faced sexual harassment during election campaigns or at work.

Earlier this year, a gaffe-prone former prime minister, Taro Aso, was forced to apologize for describing Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, a woman, as capable but not beautiful.

Women make up about 30% of the Tokyo assembly, and their presence in town assemblies in urban areas is also growing. On average, female representation in more than 1,740 Japanese local assemblies doubled to 14.5% in 2021 from 20 years ago. There are growing calls for more female voices in politics.

But in rural areas, where more traditional gender roles are more usual, 226, or 13% of the total, had “zero women” assemblies last year, according to the Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office.

In parliament, where conservative Liberal Democrats have been in power almost uninterruptedly since the end of World War II, female representation in the lower house is 10.3%, putting Japan 163rd among 190 countries, according to a report by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union in April.

In 1946, the figure wasn’t much different — only 8.4% — when a first group of 39 women were elected to parliament, according to the Gender Equality Bureau.

“There have been changes starting from regional politics, but the pace is too slow,” Sato said, proposing a mandatory quota for women.

One woman in a Cabinet of about 20 ministers was standard in the 1990s. Lately, two is usual. Maintaining an increased number of female ministers is a challenge because of a shortage of women with seniority. Women are also given limited leadership chances, which delays gender equality laws and policies.

“Because of the absence of leadership change, the metabolism is bad in Japan. Because of that, politics does not change despite changes in the public view,” Miura said.

Koike became the first female candidate to run in the LDP leadership race in 2008. Two others, Sanae Takaichi and Seiko Noda, ran in 2021 against Kishida.

Most recently, Kamikawa, the foreign minister, is seen as having a chance, because the LDP wants change as it struggles with dwindling support ratings and corruption scandals.

The winner, determined by a vote among LDP lawmakers and party members, automatically becomes prime minister because of the LDP’s dominance in parliament.

Under the Japanese system, however, having a female prime minister doesn’t necessarily mean progress in gender equality because of overwhelming male political influence. But it could be a crucial step forward, even if symbolic, said Sato, the political commentator.

“Having role models is very important … to show gender equality and that women can also aim for a top job,” Sato said. “Women in politics are no longer expected to be wallflowers.”
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SYDNEY — Australia has Tuesday appointed its first antisemitism envoy in response to an increase in attacks against its Jewish community.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the envoy would promote social cohesion and help to curb a rise in violence and abuse against Australia’s Jewish community since the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict last October.

The Prime Minister said that overwhelmingly Australians did not want the conflict in the Middle East to bring violence here.

Jillian Segal, a lawyer and business executive who has been a senior member of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, will serve as antisemitism envoy for three years.

Albanese told reporters in Sydney Tuesday that the country’s successful multiculturalism must be protected.

“What is clear is that we cannot take that for granted. What is clear is we continue to reinforce the need for social harmony and that is what today’s announcement of Jillian (Segal) is all about.”

Segal will advise the government and also promote education and awareness of antisemitism.

She told a media conference in Sydney on Tuesday that intolerance must not be allowed to take root. 

 

“It triggers the very worst instincts in an individual,” she said. “To blame others for life’s misfortunes and to hate, and it is often based on misinformation and inaccurate rumor and it can spread from individual to individual to contaminate the collective, damaging life for the entire community and leading to violence as we have seen.”

But the Jewish Council of Australia, which has been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza, told local media in a statement that Segal was an “Israel lobbyist” and her appointment would worsen social division.

Community groups have reported an increase in Islamophobic and antisemitic abuse in Australia since Israel’s war in Gaza began more than nine months ago.

Australian police are continuing to investigate an attack by a masked gang on the Melbourne office of a Jewish-Australian lawmaker last month.

Windows were smashed, and fires were lit.

The slogan “Zionism is fascism” was graffitied in red paint over an image of Josh Burns, a federal government parliamentarian.

Albanese also reconfirmed the government would also appoint a special envoy on Islamophobia.   

 
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Irvine, California — Jeremiah Manele and Charlot Salwai, the prime ministers of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, are in China this week. Their visits come as Beijing seeks to grow its bilateral ties with the two South Pacific nations and as China is increasingly competing for influence in the region with Australia, the United States and others.   

Last week, China donated a presidential building to Vanuatu while Australia and New Zealand inaugurated an airfield in the Solomon Islands. During his first overseas trip to Australia last week, Manele sought Canberra’s support to double the Solomon Islands’ police force.

The airfield and Australia’s security support are two key things analysts say China will focus on during Manele’s visit to Beijing this week.  

“Everything happening in the region is viewed through a comparative lens and recent developments [in the Solomon Islands-Australia relationship] will be top of the agenda for the Chinese,” Michael Walsh, a visiting researcher at the Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, told VOA by phone.  

For Manele, the priority will be addressing the Solomon Islands’ economic issues, some experts say. 

“[Since] the Solomon Islands’ economy is in a precarious state, Manele wants to demonstrate to Solomon Islanders that his government’s close relationship with Beijing will bring economic benefits that are tangible to their everyday lives,” Parker Novak, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told VOA by phone.  

Ahead of the trips, China’s Foreign Ministry said discussions will focus on issues of mutual interest and growing relations. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Manele’s trip would be a “great opportunity for the two sides to work together to further strengthen strategic communication, expand practical cooperation, and advance our bilateral ties.” 

While former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare was in office, the Solomon Islands deepened ties with China, including signing a police cooperation agreement with Beijing.  

Manele was the Solomon Islands’ foreign minister during Sogavare’s tenure, and some analysts expect he’ll maintain a similar foreign policy agenda.  

“He said he would maintain the standard position of ‘being friends to all and enemies to none’ for the Solomon Islands,” said Tess Newton Cain, an adjunct associate professor at Griffith Asia Institute in Australia. 

“[While] the meat and bones of Solomon Islands’ foreign policy is not going to change significantly under Manele, he will be more moderate when it comes to presenting his administration’s foreign policy agenda,” Cain told VOA by phone. 

After his trip to Australia, Manele told journalists that discussions about seeking Canberra’s support to expand the Solomon Islands’ police force won’t affect the island nation’s security arrangements with Beijing.  

“The arrangements with the People’s Republic of China, including the police cooperation arrangements, will remain in place,” he said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 

Following his trip to China, Manele travels to Japan to attend the 10th Pacific Islands Leaders meeting from July 16 to July 18. 

Great power competition in Pacific  

Despite a failed attempt to push through a regional security pact with 10 Pacific Island nations in 2022, China continues to seek opportunities to increase its influence in the Pacific.  

China signed a police cooperation deal with the Solomon Islands last year and has offered to provide security support to Tonga for a Pacific Islands Forum taking place in August. Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said he was considering the offer.  

Meanwhile, Kiribati’s acting police commissioner, Eeri Aritiera, told the Reuters news agency in February that a Chinese police delegation would support the island nation’s community policing program and IT department, raising concerns from some U.S. lawmakers. 

In January, Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister, Justin Tkatchenko, revealed that his country was engaging in early talks with China about a potential security and policing deal, prompting a senior U.S. official to warn that security guarantees offered by Beijing may come with costs.

 

Since China has presented itself as a security stakeholder in the Pacific region, some experts say Beijing will likely keep building security partnerships with regional countries.  

“[China] seeks to deepen its presence [in the Pacific] through existing mechanisms like policing and its growing maritime presence through its coast guard fleet,” said Anna Powles, an associate professor in security studies at Massey University in New Zealand.  

While China seeks to expand its security footprint in the Pacific, the United States and other democratic countries have tried to counter China’s growing security presence in the Pacific in recent years, including Washington’s efforts to sign a security agreement with Papua New Guinea in 2023. 

WATCH: US and Papua New Guinea sign security pact

Despite these attempts, Walsh in Munich said China is still making inroads in several Pacific island nations, including Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and Kiribati.  

“The West doesn’t seem to have an effective response,” he told VOA.  

There is also the question of whether security deals align with the needs of Pacific island countries, said the Griffith Asia Institute’s Cain. 

“While Pacific island countries don’t see China as posing any military threat to them, they need to have relevant security conversations with countries [they are engaging with] in order to talk about what they are really concerned about,” she told VOA.  

To safeguard their interests, Novak at the Atlantic Council said regional countries are likely to try to foster positive relationships with all external partners, whether it’s the United States, Australia, or China.  

“They believe [doing so] will ensure regional stability and sovereignty,” he told VOA. 
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Beijing — Chinese state media on Monday criticized the state grains stockpiler Sinograin after local media reported that its fuel tankers were allegedly also used to transport cooking oil, sparking food safety concerns.

The Beijing News last week reported it was an “open secret” in the transportation industry that Sinograin was using tankers to transport both fuel and food products like cooking oil, soybean oil and syrup, without cleaning the tankers in between.

The report sparked an uproar on social media over worries of food contamination.

Chinese consumers have been increasingly sensitive over food safety, with consumers turning to foreign brands and Beijing stepping up controls, after a series of scandals, including the sale of baby formula containing lethal amounts of the industrial chemical melamine in 2008.

Sinograin, in a Weibo post on Saturday, said it had ordered an investigation into whether transportation carriers leaving and entering its warehouses were compliant with food safety regulations.

Transportation units and carrier vehicles found in violation of the regulations would be terminated immediately and any major problems found would be reported to the relevant regulatory authorities, Sinograin said.

On Monday, state broadcaster CCTV called the operation a cost-saving measure that was “tantamount to poisoning.”

“While Sinograin is trying to make up for its loss, consumers are still confused and stunned,” CCTV said in a post on WeChat.

“Usually, we can avoid poor quality cooking oil by not cutting corners and choosing big brands and well-known manufacturers. But big brands can also have loopholes in the transportation chain where fuel and cooking oils are mixed, which is obviously beyond most people’s knowledge,” it said.

Such mixing of products was “not only a blatant provocation to the ‘Food Safety Law’, but also showed an extreme disregard for the life and health of consumers,” CCTV said.
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MANILA, Philippines — Japan and the Philippines signed a key defense pact Monday allowing the deployment of Japanese forces for joint military exercises, including live-fire drills, to the Southeast Asian nation that came under brutal Japanese occupation in World War II but is now building an alliance with Tokyo as they face an increasingly assertive China.

The Reciprocal Access Agreement, which similarly allows Filipino forces to enter Japan for joint combat training, was signed by Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in a Manila ceremony witnessed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. It would take effect after ratification by the countries’ legislatures, Philippine and Japanese officials said.

Kamikawa called the signing of the defense agreement “a groundbreaking achievement” that should further boost defense cooperation between Japan and the Philippines.

“A free and open international order based on the rule of law is the foundation of regional peace and prosperity,” she said. “We would like to work closely with your country to maintain and strengthen this.”

Kamikawa and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara later held talks with their Philippine counterparts on ways to further deepen relations.

The defense pact with the Philippines is the first to be forged by Japan in Asia. Japan signed similar accords with Australia in 2022 and with Britain in 2023.

Under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the Japanese government has taken steps to boost its security and defensive firepower, including a counterstrike capability that breaks from Japan’s postwar principle of focusing only on self-defense, amid threats from North Korea and China’s growing assertiveness. It’s doubling defense spending in a five-year period to 2027 in a move to bolster its military power and make Japan the world’s third-biggest military spender after the United States and China.

Many of Japan’s Asian neighbors, including the Philippines, came under Japanese aggression until its defeat in World War II and Japan’s efforts to bolster its military role and spending could be a sensitive issue. Japan and the Philippines, however, have steadily deepened defense and security ties.

Kishida’s moves dovetail with Marcos’ effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend Manila’s territorial interests in the South China Sea. The busy sea passage is a key global trade route which has been claimed virtually in its entirety by China but also contested in part by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The United States has also been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan, and reassure its Asian allies. Japan and the Philippines are treaty allies of the U.S. and their leaders held three-way talks in April at the White House, where President Biden renewed Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defend Japan and the Philippines.

Japan has had a longstanding territorial dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea. Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships, meanwhile, have been involved in a series of tense confrontations in the South China Sea since last year.

In the worst confrontation so far, Chinese coast guard personnel armed with knives, spears and an axe aboard motorboats repeatedly rammed and destroyed two Philippine navy supply vessels on June 17 in a chaotic faceoff in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal that injured several Filipino sailors. Chinese coast guard personnel seized seven navy rifles.

The Philippines strongly protested the Chinese coast guard’s actions and demanded $1 million for the damage and the return of the rifles. China accused the Philippines of instigating the violence, saying the Filipino sailors strayed into what it called Chinese territorial waters despite warnings.

Japan and the United States were among the first to express alarm over the Chinese actions and call on Beijing to abide by international laws. Washington is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
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Seoul, South Korea — Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said South Korea’s recent military drills near the border between the two nations are an inexcusable and explicit provocation, according to a report from state media KCNA on Monday.

Kim Yo Jong also accused South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of creating tensions on the Korean peninsula to divert public attention away from his poor performance in domestic politics. She cited an online petition calling for Yoon to be impeached, with more than 1 million signatures.

Kim said that in case North Korea judges its own sovereignty as violated, its armed forces will immediately carry out a mission and duty according to its constitution.

The South Korean military has resumed live-fire artillery drills near the western maritime border in late June, the first time since 2018.

Last month, South Korea said it would suspend a military agreement signed with North Korea in 2018 aimed at easing tensions, in protest of North Korea’s trash balloon launches toward the South.
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