U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visits a Philippine island at the edge of the South China Sea.
Welcome to VOA Asia Weekly. I'm Chris Casquejo in Washington. That story is just ahead, but first, making headlines.
The death toll is expected to rise as rescuers in Indonesia continue searching for survivors after a strong earthquake struck the main island of Java Monday, killing and injuring hundreds.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, flanked by representatives of 13 countries, read out a joint statement strongly condemning last Thursday’s ICBM launch from North Korea.
The daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un who recently made her first public appearance at a missile launch site is his second child, South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers Tuesday. State media released photos showing Kim walking hand-in-hand with his daughter, who’s believed to be about 10 years old. Mr. Kim is the third generation of the family that has run the regime since its founding.
Six former executives of now-defunct Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a collusion charge under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law that has silenced and jailed most opposition voices in the southern Chinese territory.
The largest district of the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou is under lockdown to tamp down rising COVID-19 cases. Many Chinese cities are increasing restrictions less than two weeks after the government issued a guideline to relax COVID restrictions.
The defense chiefs of the United States and China held talks Tuesday on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers meeting in Cambodia. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called on China to refrain from destabilizing actions toward Taiwan. China cut off bilateral defense dialogue in August after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island.
China on Monday denied an allegation that its coast guard forcibly seized Chinese rocket debris that was being towed by the Philippine navy Sunday in its territorial waters.
China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea were the focus of a visit Tuesday from U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to Palawan Island in the Philippines. The Vice President reaffirmed U.S. support for a U.N. ruling that rejected some of China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea. VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara has more.
Meeting local communities in the Philippines island of Palawan, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris underscored the consequences of illegal fishing — a regional problem with China as its biggest offender.
The vice president is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the South China Sea island, just 330 kilometers east of the disputed Spratly Islands claimed entirely by China and partly by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.
“As the United States has long made clear, we support the 2016 ruling of the U.N. arbitral tribunal, which delivered a unanimous and final decision firmly rejecting China’s expansive South China Sea maritime claims.”
China, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam — have competing territorial claims in various parts of the sea, with Beijing claiming most of it.
Skirmishes have occurred. Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
“The upheavals that we are seeing, especially, not only in the region but especially in the region, these partnerships become even more important.”
Harris’ visit was designed to show support for one of Washington’s oldest allies in Asia. During her Monday meeting with Marcos, she said an attack on the Philippines would invoke U.S. mutual defense.
As China increases military activity in the region, Washington is seeking to repair ties with Manila after fraught relations under previous President Rodrigo Duterte.
Like many in the region, the current Marcos government seeks to navigate the U.S.-China rivalry by adopting the “friend to all and an enemy to none” policy.
“Whereas Duterte’s definition was to be independent from the United States and to be dependent on China, Marcos seems to be more adept at playing this game of hedging.”
Of Washington’s five treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific, the Philippines is closest to Taiwan and therefore central to U.S. plans to deter and respond to a potential Chinese threat on the self-administered island that Beijing views as a wayward province.
Patsy Widakuswara, VOA News, Jakarta, Indonesia.
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