China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years, which it says it has the right to defend.
Blinken also underlined that diplomacy is the only way to definitively end the Russian conflict in Ukraine.
The trigger that led Japan and the Philippines to ink the deal was because of the deteriorating security situation in the South China Sea. China's coast guard increased the frequency and intensity of incursions into Philippine waters, provoking the Philippines to take countermeasures to deter China, explains Dr Rajaram Panda.
In a region increasingly shaped by competition and coercion, such collaboration strengthens security without confrontation, builds capacity without dependency and promotes order without domination, points out Dr Kumar.
The Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in a tense border standoff in eastern Ladakh since May 5, 2020, when a violent clash between the two sides erupted in the Pangong lake area.
In the Indo-Pacific's new era -- where perception shapes reality faster than treaties -- the real entrapment is not of China or the United States. It is the test Japan has set for itself -- and whether partners like India, acting as balancers rather than accelerants, can help ensure that the story ends in stability, points out Varun Arya.
The coming together of the Quad and the Australia-UK-US grouping would be a formidable adversary, moving toward the creation of a 'thousand ship navy' that reins in the PLA navy in the Indo-Pacific.
Fight on toward goals that keep receding, or exit with most objectives unmet. Trump is agitated, his poll numbers falling below the Plimsoll line, his base fractured between those who back the war and those who remember that he campaigned on ending them.
Amid a raging dispute with Japan over islands in East China Sea, the Chinese army has scaled up its military exercises on all fronts including aerial drills by its air force in Tibet as well as by special forces.
Announcing the hotline, the Chinese defence ministry said as agreed upon by the defence departments of China and Japan, the two sides have recently completed the construction of a direct telephone line for the sea and air liaison mechanism and will maintain communication on the arrangement for the launch.
Israel and the United States had a plan. Iran punched back. And now the Gulf is reeling, the world is beginning to feel the pain and, as on date, no one in Washington or Tel Aviv appears willing to admit that the punch has landed, notes Prem Panicker, continuing his must-read blog on the war in the Middle East.
United States Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for meetings with top Chinese leaders amid an international spat over China's new air defence zone over the disputed islands in the East China Sea.
'These tactics are particularly evident in China's pursuit of its territorial and maritime claims in the South and East China Seas as well as along its border with India and Bhutan'
Sufyan Shaikh, the first Indian to complete swimming in ten seas takes us through the spectacular moments that defined his life and career.
Ahead of the Quad summit on Friday, China said exchanges and cooperation between countries should contribute to mutual understanding rather than "targeting" a third party and refrain from "pursuing exclusive blocs".
China has been an aggressor against India along the Himalayan border, a top American diplomat nominated by President Joe Biden as his next envoy to Beijing has told lawmakers, stating that the US must hold the Chinese government accountable for failing to play by the rules.
"This trip will advance the Biden-Harris administration's rock-solid commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
What we are watching is something different: A fog manufactured and maintained by the people who started the war, so that the question of why it was started never has to be answered, observes Prem Panicker in his must read blog on the war in the Middle East.
Soon after he was sworn in by Vice President J D Vance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Penny Wong from Australia and Japan's Iwaya Takeshi for his first multilateral meeting as the top American diplomat.
'We condemn recent illicit missile launches in the region that violate UN Security Council resolutions. We express serious concern over recent dangerous and aggressive actions in the maritime domain. We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated one where all countries are free from coercion, and can exercise their agency to determine their futures,' the declaration said.
The 15th India-Vietnam Defence Dialogue signalled a move from routine talks to deeper cooperation, with new deals on submarine rescue and defence industry to support stability in the Indo-Pacific, notes Dr Rajaram Panda.
'One Chinese interlocutor said India should realise that "China can do without India, but India could not do without China", pointing to its inability to do without Chinese intermediates and components,' former foreign secretary Shyam Saran discovers on a visit to China.
China on Saturday said it "expelled" foreign military planes from its airspace, the first such incident after Beijing unilaterally declared an air defence zone over islands disputed with Japan in the East China Sea.
China on Thursday said it would step up patrols of its territorial waters off islands disputed with Japan in the East China Sea and other contested islets in the South China Sea, amid reports that Tokyo is considering to fire tracer bullets at Chinese spy planes.
The Sino-Japan row over disputed islands in the East China Sea took a new turn on Thursday as Beijing said its surveillance plane was 'disturbed' by Japanese fighter jets and warned Tokyo of consequences.
'They talk about their 2021 centenary goal, their 2035 goal, and their 2049 goal. They're accelerating. There's also been this unfortunately bashing of nationalism inside the People's Republic of China by the government'
'Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC),' said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made a clear break with the past on UK-China relations as he declared that the "so-called golden era" of bilateral ties is over in the face of the "systemic challenge" posed by the Chinese regime to British values and interests.
China claims nearly all of the disputed South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it. Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea. Beijing is also involved in a maritime dispute with Japan over the East China Sea.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the Quad is not against anyone, but for a rules-based international order and respect for sovereignty, in a veiled reference to China.
The aircraft carrier is China first domestically-built ship. Shandong is bigger than China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning and could house 36 fighter jets.
Saturday's Quad meeting in Delaware is taking place against the backdrop of China's assertive behaviour in the South China Sea, its sabre-rattling in the Taiwan Strait and increasing footprints in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, asserts Rup Narayan Das.
US Vice President Kamala Harris would host a separate meeting with the prime ministers of three Quad countries -- India, Australia and Japan -- at the White House to discuss with them the important factors for democracies to go forward, officials said.
China on Wednesday asserted that it has enough "will and ability" to enforce its unilaterally declared new air defence zone over disputed islands in the East China Sea after two US B-52 bombers challenged Chinese authority over the controversial airspace.
This is the first time in decades that China has made its flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile public in an apparent show of strategic deterrence, State-run China Daily reported.
China, which has territorial disputes with many countries in the strategic Indo-Pacific region, has been opposing the Quad alliance since its formation.
Chinese military on Tuesday asked Japan to "stop activities" around the contested islands in the East China Sea, warning that Beijing has the "capability and determination" to safeguard its territorial sovereignty.
President Biden has been forced to turn his attention to domestic politics, as he works to hash out a deal with Republicans to prevent the US from defaulting on its debts at the end of this month.
Bolton said that the arguments for China joining the World Trade Organisation was that it would become a more market-oriented rules-based society.
China on Thursday questioned the Japanese premier's assertions claiming sovereignty over disputed islands in East China Sea, saying Tokyo is 'self deceiving itself' by ignoring historical facts and international laws.
