Reuters reports: "China on Thursday responded to a Reuters report that the U.S. and India are discussing joint naval patrols in the disputed South China Sea, warning that interference from countries outside the region threatens peace and stability....The United States wants its regional allies and other Asian nations to adopt a more united stance against China over the South China Sea, where tension has spiked since China's construction of seven islands in the Spratly archipelago....The United States has responded by sending navy ships close to the islands China claims. China has condemned that as provocative. India has a long-running land border dispute with China, and has stepped up its naval presence far beyond the Indian Ocean in recent years, deploying a ship to the South China Sea almost constantly, an Indian navy commander said."
TIME reports: "An hour after the Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers on Sunday evening, North Korea's Shining Star satellite was spotted some 300 miles above the Bay Area's Levi's Stadium, hurtling across the California sky. It was either the second or fourth successful satellite launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), depending on whether one believes Western observers or Pyongyang's own pronouncements, respectively. North Korean state media says the satellite will monitor weather patterns, forests, natural resources and collect agricultural data....Yet if Shining Star was intended to be used against the U.S. and its regional allies like Japan, its launch also represented a hostile act toward North Korea's chief and only ally, China. Beijing had dispatched veteran diplomat Wu Dawei on Feb. 2 to convince Pyongyang to postpone the launch. Yet not only was Wu unsuccessful, the launch was even brought forward by a day to coincide with Chinese New Year's Eve — the country's major holiday."
Bloomberg Business reports: "Fuel producers from India to South Korea are finding that rising refined products from China are cutting the profit margins they've enjoyed from cheap oil to the lowest in more than a year. Worse may be coming. China's total net exports of oil products -- a measure that strips out imports -- will rise 31 percent this year to 25 million metric tons, China National Petroleum Corp., the country's biggest energy company, said in its annual research report last month. That comes after diesel exports jumped almost 75 percent last year....CNPC, as China's biggest energy company is known, predicts the country's refineries will increase output this year after the government started giving licenses to independent refiners -- those known as teapots -- to ship their products abroad."