ASEAN hopes to speed up talks on CoC on South China Sea, but an agreement is unlikely within a year.

In recent weeks, Washington has stepped up its efforts to check Chinese maritime ambitions in the South China Sea. The Pentagon has stepped up its Freedom of Navigation Operations, while deploying Defense Secretary James Mattis to key Southeast Asian partners. With China emerging as America’s top national security concern, there are growing signs that the Trump administration’s South China Sea policy is finally taking shape.

On Wednesday 17 January, the U.S. Navy conducted a much anticipated “freedom of navigation operation” (FONOP) in the South China Sea when the guided-missile destroyer USS Hopper sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal.

Secretary Mattis says he would explore deepening defense ties during visit to Indonesia.

Beijing is sounding the alarm about the US patrols in South China Sea.

China’s top newspaper, decrying Washington as a trouble-maker, said on Monday U.S. moves in the South China Sea like last week’s freedom of navigation operation will only cause China to strengthen its deployments in the disputed waterway.

This year saw the emergence of two competing narratives vis-à-vis the territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea. The result is an even more combustible geopolitical landscape, where status quo power meets revisionist power rather than commonly accepted rules taming misplaced ambition.

Despite its lower profile, the dispute in the East China Sea may carry greater risk of drawing the United States into conflict with China than the various disputes in the South China Sea.

While attention in Asia has been distracted by the North Korean nuclear crisis in the past year, China has continued to install high-frequency radar and other f

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) wrapped up the 50th anniversary of its founding by finalizing a series of landmark agreements. Among them was the much-anticipated framework of a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, which has been more than two decades in the making. Yet, upon closer examination, the diplomatic jubilation over the trajectory of COC negotiations rings hollow.