The simmering row between China and Vietnam over the disputed South China Sea came to the fore on Tuesday with Hanoi protesting over a Chinese patrol vessel firing on its fishing boat and Beijing defending its action as "legitimate and necessary" to protect sovereignty.
Not just Vietnam, but other countries in the region like Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, have also expressed an interest in acquiring the BrahMos cruise missile. Debalina Ghoshal explains the significance of the move.
India and Vietnam on Tuesday decided to ramp up their defence and security ties that will see supply of four naval patrol vessels to Hanoi and increased training of its military personnel, a month after India extended USD 100 million Line of Credit for defence procurement.
Film folk have been celebrating these last few days. Here's looking at just how.
With Valentine's Day falling on a Friday, travel is picking up as people look for quick getaways.
East Bengal look to revive fortunes in derby
Yagi, the 11th typhoon of this year, made two landfalls in China on Friday, first striking Hainan and later Guangdong province.
The boats, two from China's southern Guangdong Province, were lost on Sunday as they attempted to navigate gales near the disputed islands called Xisha by China and Paracel by Vietnam Islands about 330 km from China's island province of Hainan, Chinese officials in Hainan said.
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.
As disputed South China Sea witnesses increased Chinese influence, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Monday pitched for India's "active support" to peacefully resolve all disputes and sought its greater linkages across the region.
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 guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey conducted a patrol within 20 kilometres of Mischeef Reef, part of the Spratly Islands.
Foreign policy is always a work in progress and ups and downs are built into foreign policy process. What is permanent is national interest. Hopefully, this year, which will also witness general elections in the country, will also clear clouds in the foreign policy horizon, observes Rup Narayan Das.
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.
India is increasingly a willing participant in the evolving US' Indo-Pacific strategy. While these developments are related to the perception of a growing Chinese security challenge, their implications for India's much-vaunted strategic autonomy should be a matter of deeper and closer reflection, asserts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Even those who are the supporters of India's 'cultural nationalism' seems to be unaware of the footprint of Shri Ram in South East Asia, observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
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.
Data for the first nine days of January shows that tourist arrivals from India to the Maldives has been at similar levels as last year during the same period.
The World Photography Organisation has revealed the winners for the Sony World Photography Awards 2024.
This includes over $15 billion of proposed investment in the infrastructure sector in the Indo-Pacific and $9 billion for shoring up American defence in the region.
Two of Xi Jinping's chosen officials have disappeared from view, an indication of turmoil in Xi's government, months after he installed a collection of loyalist leaders in his cabinet, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
It will be a historic and strategic mistake to insist on taking China as a threat and adversary, or even an enemy, Chinese Defence Minister General Wei Fengh said on Sunday as he underlined that the China-United States relationship is at a critical and crucial juncture.
Indian policymakers are almost alone, alongside the United States, in seeking a hard and multi-sectoral global decoupling from China in the expectation that it will boost their economies, observes Mihir S Sharma.
'The real issue between India and China is that the Chinese have transgressed along the Line of Actual Control at multiple points.'
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.
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.
According to the Pentagon report, the PLA is creating options for dissuading, deterring, and defeating external intervention in the Indo-Pacific region.
Four-nation grouping Quad on Tuesday launched a major new initiative for the Indo-Pacific that allows the partner countries to fully monitor the waters on their shores and help ensure peace and stability in the region, a move that comes amid China's increasingly intimidatory behaviour.
'No Cold War should be reignited and no Ukraine-style crisis should be repeated in Asia'
A tour of Vietnam and Cambodia with Anita and Rohit.
In a major policy speech on Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the world will not allow China to treat the strategically important South China Sea (SCS) as its 'maritime empire' and vowed to support worried Southeast Asian countries against Beijing's 'campaign of bullying' to control the resource-rich region.
Blinken also underlined that diplomacy is the only way to definitively end the Russian conflict in Ukraine.
Indo-Pacific region. Senior officials from the ministries of External Affairs and Defence, and the US departments of Defence and State met here for the India-US 2+2 Inter-Sessional meeting.
"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.
China has for the first time landed a military plane on one of its artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the United States this month will set new benchmarks for bilateral ties and some 'really big, historic and exciting' announcements are likely to be made on defence cooperation and boosting India's indigenous military industrial base, the Pentagon has said.
China on Tuesday angrily denounced the nuclear-powered submarine deal announced by the US, UK and Australia, saying the pact violates the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the three countries are travelling "further down the dangerous and wrong path."
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.
Prime Minister Modi on Saturday left for Egypt after concluding his state visit during which he held wide-ranging talks with President Joe Biden and addressed the joint session of the US Congress.
President Biden underscored that the United States will 'continue to stand up for its interests and values and, together with our allies and partners, ensure the rules of the road for the 21st century advance an international system that is free, open, and fair', the White House said in a readout of the meeting.
