A Chinese state media broadcast, claiming to show its coastguard towing a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea, has triggered a fresh diplomatic rift between Beijing and Manila, with Philippine authorities dismissing the footage as “fake news” and accusing China of recycling video from past confrontations to manipulate public opinion. The controversy has renewed…
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has confirmed he will attend China’s World War II commemorations next month, making him the first EU leader to publicly announce his plans to be at the event, which will feature a military parade in Tiananmen Square. “Apparently, I will visit China again on the occasion of the celebration of…
Images circulating online suggest Pakistan’s military has received a shipment of Chinese-made advanced attack helicopters, a version of which has been deployed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) near China’s mountainous border with India. In the past week, photos and videos of the Z-10ME, the export version of the Chinese multirole attack helicopter, have appeared…
China’s military has warned that America’s new containerised missile and rocket launch system could “seriously undermine regional strategic stability”. A commentary in PLA Daily on Thursday noted that the launcher – hidden inside a shipping container – had appeared in recent footage from the US Army’s Fort Bragg base in North Carolina. The People’s Liberation…
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has barred a Chinese aerospace institute from bidding on tenders amid claims of bid rigging – the latest suspension in a year-long crackdown on military suppliers. In a notice on Thursday, the PLA’s procurement oversight department said the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)…
China has accused Japan—a United States treaty ally in Northeast Asia—of sending spy planes to its so-called Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the contested East China Sea. The remarks from Beijing come after Tokyo said YS-11EB intelligence-gathering aircraft had experienced close aerial encounters with Chinese planes while conducting surveillance over the region last week….
Aircraft from Japan—a treaty ally of the United States—and China have reportedly been involved in another close encounter, following similar incidents yesterday and last month. In the most recent incident on Thursday, a Japanese intelligence-gathering aircraft was intercepted by a Chinese plane. The Japanese aircraft was flying over the East China Sea, where Japan and…
The German foreign ministry said on Tuesday the aircraft was taking part in the European Union’s Aspides mission to protect marine traffic in the waterway, while the People’s Liberation Army naval vessel laser-targeted it “without reason or prior contact”. The Chinese ambassador to Berlin was summoned for the incident the ministry described as “endangering German…
The new space race is heating up, with the United States warning that its major rival China is narrowing the gap as it makes rapid technology gains. While China says its ambitious plans remain peaceful and that it rejects the weaponisation of space, some of the technologies it has developed in recent years also have…
The Chinese military released a video showing it conducted a “combat-readiness patrol” around a disputed island near the Philippines—a defense treaty ally of the United States. The South China Sea island, Scarborough Shoal, known as Huangyan Dao in Chinese and Bajo de Masinloc in Filipino, has been under Beijing’s control since a 2012 maritime standoff…