Strategic Geography
🇵🇭Philippines
The Philippines' position across the South China Sea and the Bashi Channel makes it one of the most sensitive junctions in the Indo-Pacific security architecture. This section examines gray-zone conflict and how alliance relationships actually function.
2 analyses
From Austronesian Kinship to Territorial Claims: Chinese Scholars Push Batanes Islands into New Sovereignty Dispute
A recent seminar at Jinan University in China cited geography, Austronesian kinship, and colonial history to claim that the Batanes Islands belong to Taiwan and legally fall under Chinese claim. While currently confined to academic friction, this development exposes how cultural and historical narratives are being woven into the broader geopolitical chess play of the Luzon Strait.
Lawfare in the West Pacific: How Beijing Exploits Japan-Philippines Border Talks to Advance Gray-Zone Operations East of Taiwan
As Japan and the Philippines initiate maritime boundary negotiations, Beijing has quickly recast this routine legal process as a sovereignty conflict. By conducting coast guard patrols and harassing merchant vessels east of Taiwan, China aims to construct a normalized illusion of jurisdictional control over the Western Pacific.