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washington — Military experts are warning of an increased risk of war with China following recent announcements by Beijing providing for more aggressive enforcement of its claims to disputed regions of the South China Sea.  

Late last month, China announced its coast guard will be empowered to investigate and detain for up to 60 days “foreigners who endanger China’s national security and interests” in the disputed waters. The policy will take effect on June 15.    

And on June 8, it announced it would permit the Philippines to deliver supplies and evacuate personnel from an outpost on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, which has been determined by an international tribunal to lie within Philippine waters, only if it first notifies Beijing.    

The Philippine National Security Council replied that the country will continue to maintain and supply its outposts in the South China Sea without seeking permission from any other country.    

In a formal statement under the council’s letterhead, national security adviser Eduardo Ano dismissed the suggestion as”absurd, ridiculous and unacceptable.”

According to a June 10 report in the South China Morning Post, a survey released by independent polling agency OCTA Research showed that 73% of Filipinos support further military action to safeguard the Philippines’ territorial rights, including expanded naval patrols and the dispatch of additional troops.   

Philippine media believe the new procedures will empower the Chinese coast guard to “arbitrarily” arrest Filipinos in their own waters. China’s claims to almost the entire sea reach into the internationally recognized economic zones of several Southeast Asian countries.    

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called the new rules “totally unacceptable” and said he will take all necessary measures to “protect citizens” and continue to”defend the country’s territory.”  

In his keynote speech at the Shangri-La Security Dialogue in Singapore on May 31, the president pointed out that if a Filipino was killed in a South China Sea conflict with China, it would”almost certainly” cross a red line and come “very close” to what the Philippines defines as an act of war.  

John C. Aquilino, former head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, testified before the U.S. Congress last month that Manila could invoke the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty in such a case.  

Bob Savic, head of international trade at the Global Policy Institute in London, said last week that this could bring the United States and China into a direct conflict.  

“The trigger for the First World War occurred on June 28, 1914, with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in a country in Southeast Europe. This time, the trigger could be the death of a Filipino sailor in the tropical waters of Southeast Asia,” he wrote in an article published in the Asia Times.  

He believes if Manila is forced to request U.S. assistance under the Mutual Defense Treaty, it is conceivable that China Coast Guard ships would quickly confront U.S. warships maintaining freedom of navigation in the region. “The U.S. and China must ensure they don’t sleepwalk into a repeat of the 1914 tragedy in the second half of June 2024 or, indeed, at any point in the future,” Savic wrote.  

‘It might trigger escalation’

Andrea Chloe Wong, a nonresident research fellow at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs, told VOA at a June 6 seminar hosted by the National Bureau of Asian Research that if the Mutual Defense Treaty is invoked, “it might trigger escalation or conflict between the Philippines and China.”  

The safety of Filipino personnel has become the focus of recent rounds of South China Sea disputes. On June 7, the Philippines accused a Chinese coast guard ship of ramming a Philippine ship, deterring the evacuation of a sick soldier from a grounded warship which serves as a Philippine military outpost on the Second Thomas Shoal. 

Romeo Brawner, chief of staff of the armed forces of the Philippines, told reporters June 4 that Chinese coast guard officers had seized some food that a plane dropped for Philippine naval personnel aboard the aging warship. He also released video of the incident, AP reported.   

Despite the rising tension, Oriana Skylar Mastro, a Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, told VOA that the possibility of World War III breaking out in the South China Sea is not high.  

She believes that China will not choose to fight a war in the South China Sea at this time because they know they would lose.  

“They can’t project power across those kinds of distances yet. When I talk to the PLA [People’s Liberation Army, China’s principal military force], they say the only reason they haven’t declared internal waters in the Spratly [chain] is because there’s no way they can enforce that.”  

US promises assets, say reports

The United States Coast Guard has promised to send assets to the South China Sea to help Manila uphold sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone, ABS-CBN News said Tuesday, citing the Philippine Coast Guard. 

In a statement, the Philippine Coast Guard said the U.S. Coast Guard will deploy its North Pacific Coast Guard following a proposal by Philippine Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan. Gavan called for a “greater deployment” in the high seas “to address the forthcoming threat” posed by China’s threat to arrest foreigners inside what it claims as its maritime boundaries.  

In a research report released last month by the National Bureau of Asian Research, Michael Shoebridge of the Strategic Analysis Australia pointed out that collective action by the Philippines and its allies could effectively reduce risks in the South China Sea.  

“The risk of such collective action escalating into conflict is real. However, it could be mitigated by the militaries clearly acting within international law and coordinating a united political response to demonstrate and communicate this,” he wrote. “That would counter Chinese efforts”to intimidate others and cast such lawful action as aggression.”  

Shoebridge, who also attended the National Bureau of Asian Research’s June 6 seminar, said at the meeting that “unless we cause Chinese policy and action to fail, we are leaving all the leverage with Beijing, and we are waiting for our servicemen and women to be killed by the PLA. And that’s not the future that I want.”  

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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BEIJING — Chinese police have detained a suspect in a stabbing attack on four instructors from Iowa’s Cornell College who were teaching at a Chinese university in the northeast city of Jilin, officials said Tuesday.

Jilin city police said a 55-year-old man surnamed Cui was walking in a public park on Monday when he bumped into a foreigner. He stabbed the foreigner and three other foreigners who were with him, and also stabbed a Chinese person who approached in an attempt to intervene, police said.

The instructors from Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University, officials at the U.S. school said.

The injured were rushed to a hospital for treatment and none was in critical condition, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a daily briefing Tuesday. He said police believe the attack in Jilin city’s Beishan Park was an isolated incident, based on a preliminary assessment, and the investigation is ongoing.

Cornell College President Jonathan Brand said in a statement that the instructors were attacked while at the park with a faculty member from Beihua, which is in an outlying part of Jilin, an industrial city about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Beijing. Monday was a public holiday in China.

The State Department said in a statement it was aware of reports of a stabbing and was monitoring the situation. The attack happened as both Beijing and Washington are seeking to expand people-to-people exchanges to help bolster relations amid tensions over trade and such international issues as Taiwan, the South China Sea and the war in Ukraine.

An Iowa state lawmaker posted a statement on Instagram saying his brother, David Zabner, had been wounded during a stabbing attack in Jilin. Rep. Adam Zabner described his brother as a doctoral student at Tufts University who was in China under the Cornell-Beihua relationship.

“I spoke to David a few minutes ago, he is recovering from his injuries and doing well,” Adam Zabner wrote, adding that his brother was grateful for the care he received at a hospital.

News of the incident was suppressed in China, where the government maintains control on information about anything considered sensitive. News media outlets had not reported it. Some social media accounts posted foreign media reports about the attack, but a hashtag about it was blocked on a popular portal and photos and video of the incident were quickly taken down.

Cornell spokesperson Jen Visser said in an email that the college was still gathering information about what happened.

Visser said the private college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, partners with Beihua University. A college news release from 2018, when the program started, says Beihua provides funding for Cornell professors to travel to China to teach a portion of courses in computer science, mathematics and physics over a two-week period.

According to a 2020 post on Beihua’s website, the Chinese university uses American teaching methods and resources to give engineering students an international perspective and English-language ability.

About one-third of the core courses in the program use U.S. textbooks and are taught by American professors, according to the post. Students can apply to study for two years of their four-year education at Cornell College and receive degrees from both institutions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has unveiled a plan to invite 50,000 young Americans to China in the next five years, though Chinese diplomats say a travel advisory by the U.S. State Department has discouraged Americans from visiting China.

Citing arbitrary detentions as well as exit bans that could prevent Americans from leaving the country, the State Department has issued a Level 3 travel advisory — the second-highest warning level — for mainland China. It urges Americans to “reconsider travel” to China.

Some American universities have suspended their China programs due to the travel advisory.

Lin, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said China has taken effective measures to protect the safety of foreigners. “We believe that the isolated incident will not disrupt normal cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,” he said.
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MANILA, Philippines — Hundreds of American and Philippine troops concluded Monday a new combat exercise in the northern Philippines that tested their endurance in more than a week of brutal heat and volatile weather, and braced them to respond to any threat in tropical jungles and on scattered islands, two U.S. and Philippine generals said. 

The Biden administration has been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any possible confrontation over Taiwan and other Asian flash points. The move has dovetailed with Philippine efforts to shore up its territorial defenses amid escalating disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea. 

The large-scale battle drills, which have been held in Hawaii in recent years under the U.S. Army’s Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center, have been introduced in the Philippines this year. There is also a version in Alaska. The exercises allow the U.S. Army, its allies and friendly forces to train in extreme conditions “where they are most likely to operate from archipelagos, jungles and heat in the tropics to high-altitude and extreme cold in the Arctic,” said Major Adan Cazarez, a public affairs officer of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division. 

The June 1-10 warfighting exercise began with an air assault on mock enemy forces to allow the deployment of U.S. and Philippine soldiers who secured an area, which served as a staging ground before a major offensive. When their communication lines for supplies were threatened, top commanders decided to shift to a defensive assault and repelled the enemy attempt and successfully launched the offensive. 

Key aspects of the mock battle, including the planning, deployments, logistical preparations and contingency readiness, were reviewed by military assessors for combat efficiency. 

The combat exercises, Cazarez said, were integrated in annual U.S.-Philippine army joint exercises called Salaknib for the first time this year. About 1,500 U.S. and Filipino soldiers participated in the new battle drills staged in a hinterland in Fort Magsaysay, a sprawling Philippine army camp in an agricultural region known for its scorching weather. The temperature this year has been exacerbated by El Nino, an occasional warming of the Pacific that shifts global weather patterns. 

“The terrain is without question some of the most difficult that our soldiers have ever had the experience to move into. The heat on a daily basis was well over 95 degrees (Fahrenheit; 35 degrees Celsius) and it challenged us from a sustainable perspective,” Major General Marcus Evans, commander of the U.S. Army’s Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, told The Associated Press in an online interview from the battle training site. 

Coordinating artillery and aerial fire and maneuvers “on a very challenging piece of terrain and, really, unforgiving temperatures, were all things that added to the overall training value,” Evans said. He added that American pilots also had to adjust to the region’s unpredictable weather. 

Philippine army Major General Andrew de Lara Costelo said the combat drills were designed to allow U.S. and Philippine forces and potentially other allies to operate seamlessly in future contingencies. 

“This fosters interoperability and shared tactics, techniques and procedures,” Costelo told the AP. 

“By working together, we harness our combined strengths, knowledge and capabilities, ensuring that we are prepared to face any challenges that may arise,” he said. 

The war exercises were staged after the conclusion of two larger back-to-back exercises earlier this year between U.S. and Philippine forces, the Salaknib and the Balikatan — Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder — which involved more than 16,000 U.S. and Philippine military personnel in their largest combat maneuvers that involved live-fire drills in and near the disputed South China Sea. Several countries sent military observers. 

China has vehemently opposed the combat exercises and increased deployments of American forces to Asia, including in the Philippines, saying such military presence was endangering regional stability and was designed to contain Beijing. The Philippine military says the military drills didn’t target any country and served to deter aggression. 

Last year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. defended his decision to allow a U.S. military presence in more Philippine military camps under a 2014 defense pact, saying it was vital to his country’s territorial defense. 

China had warned that the increased U.S. military presence would “drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife.”
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Bangkok — Thailand’s democracy movement faces a pivotal week as the Constitutional Court considers whether to dissolve the election-winning Move Forward Party (MFP), a ruling which would effectively nullify the votes of 14 million people and trigger a new period of political instability. 

MFP became Thailand’s largest party at the May 2023 polls, winning 151 parliamentary seats and igniting calls to cut the army from politics and redistribute wealth and power more evenly.  

But it was blocked from forming a government and has since run into endless obstacles brought by a conservative establishment rattled by its success.  

The court will meet on June 12 to consider MFP’s fate on an allegation that it breached the Thai constitution by calling for reform of the royal defamation law — which protects the monarchy from criticism — during its election campaign. 

Party frontman Pita Limjaroenrat says MFP had no intention of overthrowing the monarchy, as alleged, with a call to amend a law that has seen scores of young pro-democracy activists charged since 2020. 

The activists came out to protest when the same court dissolved Move Forward’s predecessor — Future Forward.  

“No one can really say how the court is going to rule but if we are to be dissolved this would be two parties in five years,” Pita told reporters Sunday at a news conference. 

“I don’t even want to think or forecast how this might affect Thailand especially when our society, economy, and politics are still fragile,” he added.   

The court is widely expected to strike out the party, which has the potential to stir a new round of political uncertainty. 

“In the short term, there may be big protests across the country like those that happened when they dissolved Future Forward,” Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, a constitutional scholar at Chulalongkorn University, told VOA. 

“But in the long term I’m more concerned that the conservative elite will actually succeed in slowly weakening the progressive movement, by banning MPs and dissolving whatever the next party incarnation is.” 

The monarchy sits at the head of Thai power, backed by an army which has carried out 13 coups since the kingdom became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. 

Where coups have failed to end the democracy cause, the courts have stepped in by banning parties and popular politicians, mainly from groups which threaten the status quo.  

The Constitutional Court can also impose a decade-long political ban on the party leader — including Pita — when it renders a decision. 

What happened 

Move Forward emerged from last year’s poll as the most serious threat to the elite order in a generation. Harvard-educated leader Pita appeared primed for the premiership. 

But he was blocked from taking office by senators who were appointed by generals after the last coup in 2014. The party was subsequently forced into the role of the opposition. 

Instead, conservatives rallied behind the Pheu Thai party, formerly Thailand’s most radical group, to take the reins of government. 

The courts have previously taken out parties linked with Pheu Thai’s founder, 74-year-old telecoms billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. Until its deal to lead the government, Pheu Thai was seen as the gravest threat to the establishment.  

Now it finds itself aligned with its former enemies.  

“There’s no such thing as normal politics in this country,” Sirote Klampaiboon, an independent scholar and political commentator, told VOA.  

Referring to the establishment’s opposition, Klampaiboon said, “A political entity can be destroyed at any time. Participatory democracy can be destroyed at any time.” 

Even the current coalition government is now also being destabilized by court cases against its prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, and Pheu Thai’s patron, Thaksin. 

Experts say it is a sign of the kingdom’s conservatives exerting their behind-the-scenes control over politics despite losing the popular vote.  

If Move Forward is dissolved, most of its lawmakers are expected to regroup under a new banner, whose name has yet to be announced.  

Others, however, may defect to coalition parties — a common practice in Thai politics — weakening its parliamentary hand.  

Thailand’s latest democracy movement stems from Future Forward, founded by the billionaire scion of an auto parts empire, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. 

Future Forward won 6 million votes in the 2019 election but was dissolved a year later with Thanathorn banned from politics for a decade for breaching media shareholding rules, which he denied.  

Four years on, the party’s successor Move Forward won 14 million votes. 

Thanathorn, a charismatic figure who still pulls large crowds wherever he goes, says the future belongs to a new era in politics.  

“If Pita was our prime minister this would already be the beginning of a new era of progressive Thailand,” he told the audience at a June 1 screening of a documentary about his rise from nowhere to the center of Thai politics. 

“I’m confident that by 2027, when we will have the next election, our political horizons will be closer. Whatever our party name will be… we will absolutely be ready.”
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Tokyo — The United States needs Japan’s help to cope with strategic challenges in Europe and Asia that are straining its defense industries, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said on Monday as the countries kicked off talks on military industrial cooperation.

“Our national security strategy calls for us to be able to handle one and a half theaters, that’s a major war and another one to a stand-off, and with both the Middle East, Ukraine, and keeping our deterrence credible in this region (East Asia) you can already see that we are in two plus,” Rahm Emanuel told reporters. 

On Sunday, Japan and the U.S. kicked off their first talks in Tokyo on forging deeper defense industry collaboration under the U.S.-Japan Forum on Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment (DICAS) established in April by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden.  

Discussions on Tuesday between U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William A. LaPlante and Masaki Fukasawa, the head of Japan’s Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Agency, will focus on naval repairs in Japan that could help free up U.S. yards to build more warships.

“China has a major capacity we already know that will surpass us on new shipbuilding,” Emanuel said.  

Other potential cooperation between Japan and the U.S. includes aircraft repairs, missile production and military supply chain resilience, he added.

Japan and the U.S. already build a missile defense interceptor together and Tokyo has also agreed to supply Patriot PAC3 air-defense missiles to the U.S. 
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Wellington, New Zealand — Chinese Premier Li Qiang will visit New Zealand this week, Prime Minister Chris Luxon said Monday, a rare visit expected to focus on bolstering trade while setting aside security concerns.

Li will be the first Chinese premier to visit New Zealand since 2017, embarking on a trip that is widely expected to also take him to Australia.

China is New Zealand’s largest export destination, and Wellington has been one of Beijing’s closest partners among Western democracies.

Relations have become strained in recent years as China has looked to expand its military and diplomatic reach across the Pacific.

“I look forward to warmly welcoming Premier Li in New Zealand,” Luxon said in a statement. “The premier’s visit is a valuable opportunity for exchanges on areas of cooperation between New Zealand and China.”

Luxon said Li — China’s number two official — would arrive to a ceremonial welcome and official dinner “later this week,” before a series of bilateral meetings.

Li follows a string of high-powered Chinese delegates who have made the trip to New Zealand in recent months.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi held high-level talks during a visit to the capital, Wellington, earlier this year.

New Zealand’s recently elected center-right government has pivoted toward closer ties with Australia and the United States.

It has also been mulling its involvement in the landmark AUKUS security pact between Washington, Canberra and London — a move that would greatly irritate China.

New Zealand’s foreign minister in May hit out at China’s bid for an increased security presence in the Pacific Islands, warning against actions that could “destabilize” or undermine regional security.

“New Zealand and China engage where we have shared interests, and we speak frankly and constructively with each other where we have differences,” Luxon said on Monday.

“Our relationship is significant, complex and resilient.”

Smoothing differences

Jason Young, an expert on China-New Zealand relations, said Li’s visit showed both sides were willing to set aside these disagreements.

“The high-level visit in itself is a win,” said Young, from New Zealand’s Victoria University. “It’s primarily designed for both sides to demonstrate that many challenges in the relationship are being managed.”

With China’s economy showing signs of slowing down, diplomats and trade officials were looking to “engage with as many markets as they can,” Young said.

“New Zealand already has close to a third of our exports going to China. We’re kind of at saturation point. Whereas for China, there’s a lot more momentum to improve relations,” he said.

Li is expected to visit Australia after New Zealand, although Canberra has yet to confirm that leg of the trip.

“The potential visit of the Chinese premier will be confirmed in the usual way,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters on Monday.

China and Australia have been patching up their relationship in the wake of a bitter and costly trade dispute.

Starting in 2020, a slew of Australia’s most lucrative export commodities were effectively banned from China.

But as relations have improved under a new government in Canberra, China has dropped tariffs on Australian beef, barley and wine, halted an import ban on timber and resumed shipments of coal.
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says it will restart anti-North Korean propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas in response to continuing North Korean campaigns to drop trash on the South with balloons.

Following an emergency security meeting led by South Korean national security director Chang Ho-jin, the officials decided to install and begin the loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas on Sunday, Seoul’s presidential office said in a statement. The move is certain to anger North Korea and potentially prompt it to take its own retaliatory military steps.

Chang and other South Korean security officials berated Pyongyang for attempting to cause “anxiety and disruption” in South Korea and stressed that North Korea will be “solely responsible” for any future escalation of tensions between the Koreas.

North Korea over the weekend flew hundreds of trash-carrying balloons to South Korea in its third such campaign since late May, the South’s military said, just days after South Korean activists floated their own balloons to scatter propaganda leaflets in the North.

North Korea has so far sent more than 1,000 balloons to drop tons of trash and manure in the South in retaliation against South Korean civilian leafletting campaigns, adding to tensions between the war-divided rivals amid a diplomatic stalemate over the North’s nuclear ambitions.

The resumption of South Korea’s loudspeaker broadcasts has been widely anticipated since last week, when South Korea suspended a 2018 tension-easing agreement with North Korea. The move allowed for the South to resume propaganda campaigns and possibly restart live-fire military exercises in border areas.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North launching around 330 balloons toward the South since Saturday night and about 80 were found in South Korean territory as of Sunday morning. The military said winds were blowing eastward on Saturday night, which possibly caused many balloons to float away from South Korean territory.

The South’s military said the balloons that did land dropped trash, including plastic and paper waste, but no hazardous substances were discovered.

The military, which has mobilized chemical rapid response and explosive clearance units to retrieve the North Korean balloons and materials, alerted the public to beware of falling objects and not to touch balloons found on the ground but report them to police or military authorities.

Saturday’s balloon launches by North Korea were the third of their kind since May 28. In North Korea’s previous two rounds of balloon activities, South Korean authorities discovered about 1,000 balloons that were tied to vinyl bags containing manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and waste paper. Some were popped and scattered on roads, residential areas and schools. No highly dangerous materials were found and no major damage has been reported.

The North’s vice defense minister, Kim Kang Il, later said his country would stop the balloon campaign but threatened to resume it if South Korean activists sent leaflets again.

In defiance of the warning, a South Korean civilian group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, said it launched 10 balloons from a border town on Thursday carrying 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets, USB sticks with K-pop songs and South Korean dramas, and U.S. $1 bills. South Korean media reported another activist group also flew balloons with 200,000 propaganda leaflets toward North Korea on Friday.

South Korean officials called the North Korean trash balloon launches and other recent provocations “absurd” and “irrational” and vowed strong retaliation.

With the loudspeakers, South Korea may blare anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, K-pop songs and outside news across the rivals’ heavily armed border. North Korea is extremely sensitive to such broadcasts because it fears it could demoralize front-line troops and residents and eventually weaken leader Kim Jong Un’s grip on power, analysts say.

In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

Kim in recent years has waged an intensifying campaign to eliminate South Korean cultural and language influences. In January, Kim declared the North will abandon its longstanding goal of a peaceful unification with the South and rewrite its constitution to cement the South as a permanent enemy. Experts say Kim’s efforts to reinforce the North’s separate identity may be aimed at strengthening the Kim family’s dynastic rule.

North Korea’s balloon campaign is also possibly meant to cause a divide in South Korea over its conservative government’s hard-line approach on North Korea.

Liberal lawmakers, some civic groups and front-line residents in South Korea have called on the government to urge leafleting activists to stop flying balloons to avoid unnecessary clashes with North Korea. But government officials haven’t made such an appeal in line with last year’s constitutional court ruling that struck down a law criminalizing an anti-North Korea leafletting as a violation of free speech.
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MANILA — The Philippines will continue to maintain and supply its outposts in the South China Sea without seeking permission from any other country, the country’s national security adviser said. 

The Philippines national security council said Saturday it reaffirmed its commitment to uphold its sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Second Thomas Shoal. 

“Our operations are conducted within our own territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, and we will not be deterred by foreign interference or intimidation,” said National Security Adviser Secretary Eduardo Ano. 

The Philippine agency issued a statement in response to China’s suggestion that the Philippines must first notify Beijing over access. 

China’s foreign ministry said Friday it will allow the Philippines to deliver supplies and evacuate personnel if Manila notifies Beijing in advance. 

Ano described such suggestions as “absurd, nonsense and unacceptable.” 

He added: “We do not and will never need China’s approval for any of our activities therein.” 

But the Philippines remains open to dialogue and peaceful negotiations to resolve disputes in the entire South China Sea, the council said. 

The Philippine coast guard accused its Chinese counterpart Friday of blocking efforts to evacuate a sick member of its armed forces in the South China Sea. 

It was the latest dispute in a longstanding territorial spat with China, which claims almost all of the South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion in annual shipping commerce. 

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague said China’s claims had no legal basis, a decision Beijing has rejected. 
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Bangkok — Authorities in Vietnam have arrested a leading independent journalist for “abusing democratic freedoms” to undermine the state by posting articles on Facebook, police announced on Saturday.

Huy Duc was detained for investigation for posts that “violate the interests of the State, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals,” the Ministry of Public Security said.

The 62-year-old former senior lieutenant worked for several influential newspapers in Vietnam before being fired in 2009 for criticizing the country’s former communist ally the Soviet Union.

Shortly before his arrest, Duc took aim at Vietnam’s new president, To Lam, as well as Nguyen Phu Trong, the communist party general secretary and most powerful individual in the country’s political system.

Lawyer Tran Dinh Trien was held along with Duc on the same charges.

Communist one-party Vietnam has strict curbs on freedom of expression, and Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, ranks it 174th out of 180 countries for press freedom, describing it as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists.

Duc’s blog, one of the most popular in authoritarian Vietnam, was highly critical of government responses on issues including control of the media, relations with China and corruption.

Duc, whose real name is Truong Huy San, spent a year at Harvard University on a Nieman Fellowship in 2012. During his time abroad, his account of life in Vietnam after the end of the war with the United States, “The Winning Side,” was published.

RSF called for his release.

“The articles of independent journalist Huy Duc are an invaluable source of information enabling the Vietnamese public to access censored information by the Hanoi regime,” RSF Asia-Pacific Bureau Director Cedric Alviani said in a statement.

Rights campaigners say the government has in recent years stepped up a crackdown on civil society, while thousands of people, including several senior government and business leaders, have been caught up in a massive anti-graft campaign.

“No country can develop sustainably based on fear,” Duc wrote on Facebook in May.
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