The Philippine coastguard called on its country’s fishing fleets to keep operating around the Scarborough Shoal (known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines and Huangyan Dao in China) despite the large Chinese presence in the disputed South China Sea area.
Coastguard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said while Philippine government vessels can’t maintain a constant presence, they are committed to protecting the country’s fishing rights in what it sees as its Exclusive Economic Zone.
Country: Iraq
Iraqi Air Force Denies Rumors It Agreed to Buy Chinese JF-17 Fighter Jets From Pakistan
Reports began circulating late last week that Iraq had finalized a deal to purchase 12 JF-17 Thunder fighter jets from Pakistan for $664 million. The news lit up Pakistani Twitter as hundreds of posts emerged celebrating the deal that would make ...
Backgrounder: How China is Consolidating Oil and Gas Supplies in the Middle East
Amid rising geopolitical tensions with the United States, China is moving to tighten its control over key routes that supply it with oil and liquid natural gas. Anxiety about the United States and its allies’ ability to block shipping at critical geographical
The China-Mediterranean Observer: Assessing the Impact of the Chinese Defense Minister’s Recent Visit to Iran
We start this issue of the ChinaMed Observer reporting on the visit to Iran made by the Chinese Minister of Defence, Wei Fenghe. During the visit on April 27th Wei met with several high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Seyed Ebrahim Raisi, Minister of Defense General Mohammad-Reza Gharayi ...
How Will Ukraine Affect China’s Global Role? Arab Columnists Weigh In
The conflict in Ukraine is causing a flurry of analysis in the Arabic-language media, and a lot of this writing also focuses on how the conflict is affecting China’s global role. One of the dominant themes is that the Ukraine crisis ...
The BRI Challenges Our Assumptions of How the World Fits Together
A fascinating new report emerged from the Green Financing and Development Center at Fudan University in Shanghai this week, tracking trends in China’s Belt and Road investment. The big news is that while global BRI spending (both foreign direct investment and loans) has remained stable at roughly ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Philippine Fishing Fleets Urged to Maintain Presence at Disputed Shoal as Tensions Build
The China-Mediterranean Observer: Greece Settles Port Dispute With China But Concerns Linger
Although many countries, such as Iraq, Algeria, and Syria, continue to underline the positive outcomes of their relations with China, the search through the media outlets of the wider Mediterranean also showed that there are raising concerns over a rising Chinese political presence in the MENA region, ...
China Wants to Be a Big Player in the Middle East
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's latest six-nation tour of the Middle East and Turkey revealed that Beijing now aims to play a much larger role in the region. During his trip, Wang signed a high-profile ...
China Tries to Calm U.S. Anxieties About New Pact With Iran
One of China's most prominent Iran scholars, Fan Hongda from the Shanghai Institute of International Relations, published a column in the Communist Party-controlled English-language newspaper China Daily that appears intended to try and calm fears in the United States and to send the message that ...
China Donates Vaccines to UN Peacekeepers and International Olympic Committee
China will donate COVID-19 vaccines to the United Nations for use by peacekeepers stationed around the world, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at the regular press briefing in Beijing on Friday. Zhao did not mention how many doses would be offered or when they ...
Chinese COVID-19 Vaccines Arrive in Guinea
Guinea on Wednesday received a donation of 200,000 Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine doses from China as it seeks help from multiple sources to halt the spread of the coronavirus, according to foreign affairs minister Ibrahima Khalil Kaba. Officials in Conakry are also expecting a shipment of ...