Video Shows Chinese ‘Militia' Ship Near US Ally's Disputed Territory
A Chinese vessel briefly ran aground near a Philippine-held island in the South China Sea Saturday, Manila says.
The ship, suspected to be part of China's controversial Maritime Militia, was captured in a video made public by the Philippine coast guard.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry by email with a request for comment.
China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, citing "historical rights," putting it at odds with several neighbors, including the Philippines. The U.S. defense treaty ally has been pushing back against Chinese activities within its maritime zone, resulting in sometimes tense confrontations.
Beijing maintains the so-called Maritime Militia are no more than patriotic fishermen, but analysts have described them as a key tool in China's push for greater control over the strategic waterway, through which more than $3 trillion in trade is estimated to pass each year.
These vessels have been observed occupying disputed waters for weeks on end, without appearing to engage in fishing operations.
The suspected Maritime Militia vessel ran aground on one of several sandbars that make up the feature known as Sandy Cay, Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said Monday in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The ship had likely been driven into the shallows by adverse conditions, which at the time included strong winds and waves of 2 to 3 meters (6.6 to 9.8 feet).
The vessel did not respond to inquiries broadcast by coast guard personnel stationed at Thitu Island, located just about one mile away. A Chinese coast guard cutter was observed communicating with the stranded vessel from nearby, though it did not approach-apparently concerned it too might run aground, Tarriela wrote.
The ship managed to free itself after about three hours, the spokesperson said.
The largest of the Philippine-controlled Spratly Islands, Thitu is one of the most fiercely contested features of Manila's territorial dispute with Beijing, and the only one with a permanent civilian population.
It also hosts a military garrison and airstrip, which was recently extended as the Philippines seeks to reinforce its presence in the area amid tensions with its more powerful neighbor, China.
Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro previously told Newsweek: "I believe China will continue its path because behind all of this is a political motive, and that's really clear.
"To us right now there is only one rational reason why [for] a country with a leadership structure such as China-that is to extend to the sphere of influence of dynastic politics of whatever nature."
Ma Bo, associate professor at the School of International Studies at Nanjing University, saidMonday in Chinese state media outlet the Global Times: "The South China Sea situation is becoming increasingly complex, and it is evident that the U.S. government is attempting to position the Philippines as its strategic proxy in Southeast Asia…
"It increases the risk of the Philippines being drawn into regional conflicts and undermines its long-term prospects for economic development and regional cooperation."
The Philippine Navy said Tuesday it had monitored 41 Chinese navy warships and coast guard cutters within waters claimed by the Philippines in May. Among these were four coast guard ships and four warships near Thitu Island.
The Philippine coast guard will carry out an assessment at Sandy Cay for potential reef damage "caused by the unlawful presence of the Chinese Maritime Militia in the Philippines' territorial waters," Tariela said.
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29 minutes ago
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Boston Globe
31 minutes ago
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US governors are divided along party lines about military troops deployed to protests
All 22 other Democratic governors signed a statement sent by the Democratic Governors Association on Sunday backing Newsom, calling the Guard deployment and threats to send in Marines 'an alarming abuse of power' that 'undermines the mission of our service members, erodes public trust, and shows the Trump administration does not trust local law enforcement.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The protests in Los Angeles have mostly been contained to five blocks in a small section of downtown; nearly 200 people were detained on Tuesday and at least seven police officers have been injured. Advertisement In Republican-controlled states, governors have not said when or how they're planning to deploy military troops for protests. Since Trump's return to office, Democratic governors have been calculating about when to criticize him, when to emphasize common ground and when to bite their tongues. 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Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Exclusive-China-backed militia secures control of new rare earth mines in Myanmar
By Naw Betty Han, Shoon Naing, Devjyot Ghoshal, Eleanor Whalley and Napat Wesshasartar BANGKOK (Reuters) -A Chinese-backed militia is protecting new rare earth mines in eastern Myanmar, according to four people familiar with the matter, as Beijing moves to secure control of the minerals it is wielding as a bargaining chip in its trade war with Washington. China has a near-monopoly over the processing of heavy rare earths into magnets that power critical goods like wind turbines, medical devices and electric vehicles. But Beijing is heavily reliant on Myanmar for the rare earth metals and oxides needed to produce them: the war-torn country was the source of nearly half those imports in the first four months of this year, Chinese customs data show. Beijing's access to fresh stockpiles of minerals like dysprosium and terbium has been throttled recently after a major mining belt in Myanmar's north was taken over by an armed group battling the Southeast Asian country's junta, which Beijing supports. Now, in the hillsides of Shan state in eastern Myanmar, Chinese miners are opening new deposits for extraction, according to two of the sources, both of whom work at one of the mines. At least 100 people are working day-to-night shifts excavating hillsides and extracting minerals using chemicals, the sources said. Two other residents of the area said they had witnessed trucks carrying material from the mines, between the towns of Mong Hsat and Mong Yun, toward the Chinese border some 200km away. Reuters identified some of the sites using imagery from commercial satellite providers Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies. 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"There is a whole belt of rare earths that goes down through Kachin, through Shan, parts of Laos," he said. China's Ministry of Commerce, as well as the UWSA and the junta, did not respond to Reuters' questions. Access to rare earths is increasingly important to Beijing, which tightened restrictions on its exports of metals and magnets after U.S. President Donald Trump resumed his trade war with China this year. While China appears to have recently approved more exports and Trump has signalled progress in resolving the dispute, the move has upended global supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers and semiconductor companies. The price of terbium oxide has jumped by over 27% across the last six months, Shanghai Metals Market data show. Dysprosium oxide prices have fluctuated sharply, rising around 1% during the same period. CHINESE INFLUENCE A prominent circular clearing first appears in the forested hills of Shan state, some 30 km (18.6 miles) away from the Thai border, in April 2023, according to the satellite images reviewed by Reuters. By February 2025 - shortly after the Kachin mines suspended work - the site housed over a dozen leaching pools, which are ponds typically used to extract heavy rare earths, the images showed. Six km away, across the Kok river, another forest clearing was captured in satellite imagery from May 2024. Within a year, it had transformed into a facility with 20 leaching pools. Minerals analyst David Merriman, who reviewed two of the Maxar images for Reuters, said the infrastructure at the Shan mines, as well as observable erosion levels to the topography, indicated that the facilities "have been producing for a little bit already." At least one of the mines is run by a Chinese company using Chinese-speaking managers, according to the two mine workers and two members of the Shan Human Rights Foundation, an advocacy group that identified the existence of the operations in a May report using satellite imagery. An office at one of the two sites also had a company logo written in Chinese characters, said one of the workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters. The use of Chinese operators in the Shan mines and transportation of the output to China mirrors a similar system in Kachin, where entire hillsides stand scarred by leaching pools. Chinese mining firms can produce heavy rare earth oxides in low-cost and loosely regulated Myanmar seven times cheaper than in other regions with similar deposits, said Neha Mukherjee of London-based Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. "Margins are huge." Beijing tightly controls the technology that allows for the efficient extraction of heavy rare earths, and she said that it would be difficult to operate a facility in Myanmar without Chinese assistance. The satellite imagery suggest the Shan mines are smaller than their Kachin counterparts but they are likely to yield the same elements, according to Merriman, who serves as research director at consultancy Project Blue. "The Shan State deposits will have terbium and dysprosium in them, and they will be the main elements that (the miners) are targeting there," he said. STRATEGIC TOOL The UWSA oversees a remote statelet the size of Belgium and, according to U.S. prosecutors, has long prospered from the drug trade. It has a long-standing ceasefire with the junta but still maintains a force of between 30,000 and 35,000 personnel, equipped with modern weaponry mainly sourced from China, according to Ye Myo Hein, a senior fellow at the Southeast Asia Peace Institute. "The UWSA functions as a key instrument for China to maintain strategic leverage along the Myanmar-China border and exert influence over other ethnic armed groups," he said. Some of those fighters are also closely monitoring the mining area, said SHRF member Leng Harn. "People cannot freely go in and out of the area without ID cards issued by UWSA." Shan state has largely kept out of the protracted civil war, in which an assortment of armed groups are battling the junta. The fighting has also roiled the Kachin mining belt and pushed many Chinese operators to cease work. China has repeatedly said that it seeks stability in Myanmar, where it has significant investments. Beijing has intervened to halt fighting in some areas near its border. "The Wa have had now 35 years with no real conflict with the Myanmar military," said USIP's Myanmar country director Jason Towers. "Chinese companies and the Chinese government would see the Wa areas as being more stable than other parts of northern Burma." The bet on Shan's rare earths deposit could provide more leverage to China amid a global scramble for the critical minerals, said Benchmark's Mukherjee. "If there's so much disruption happening in Kachin, they would be looking for alternative sources," she said. "They want to keep the control of heavy rare earths in their hands. They use that as a strategic tool." (Additional reporting by the Beijing newsroom; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Katerina Ang) 登入存取你的投資組合
