When President Donald Trump sat down to lunch with his Japanese counterpart this month, talk turned quickly to how Tokyo could help realize a decades-old proposal to unlock gas in Alaska and ship it to U.S. allies in Asia.Trump and his energy tsar Doug Burgum framed the venture as a way for Japan to replace Middle East energy shipments and address its trade imbalance with the U.S.
The U.S. State Department has removed a statement on its website that it does not support Taiwan independence, among changes that the island's government praised on Sunday as supporting Taiwan.The fact sheet on Taiwan retains Washington's opposition to unilateral change from either Taiwan or from China, which claims the democratically governed island as its own.
Taiwan raised its alert level on Monday saying China has set up seven zones of reserved airspace and deployed naval fleets and coast guard boats in what a security source described as the first military drills across a broad swathe of the region's waters.A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters that China currently has nearly 90 navy and coast guard ships in waters near Taiwan
China's newest nuclear-powered attack submarine sank earlier this year, a senior U.S. defense official said on Thursday, a potential embarrassment for Beijing as it seeks to expand its military capabilities.China already has the largest navy in the world, with over 370 ships, and it has embarked on production of a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines.A senior U.S.
The U.S. Coast Guard is watching an "uptick" in Chinese and Russian navy activity around Alaska and the northern Pacific but encounters to date have been very professional, a senior commander said on Friday.Vice Admiral Andrew J. Tiongson, U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area Commander, noted on a call with regional reporters while visiting Japan that his country and Russia share a maritime boundary
A Chinese man arrested after his speedboat illegally entered a Taipei harbor is a former navy captain who could have been probing the island's defenses, senior Taiwanese officials said on Tuesday.Taiwan's coast guard arrested the man on Sunday at the coastal neighborhood of Tamsui after his boat entered a river that leads into Taipei
China's military on Monday condemned the sailing of a Canadian warship in the Taiwan Strait, saying its air and naval forces had monitored and warned the ship, a mission that came just a few days after U.S. Navy ships made a similar mission.The U.S. Navy, and occasionally ships from allied countries like Canada, Britain and France, transit the strait, which they consider an international waterway
Two U.S. Navy ships sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait this week in the first such mission since President Donald Trump took office last month, drawing an angry reaction from China, which said the mission increased security risks.The U.S. Navy, occasionally accompanied by ships from allied countries, transits the strait about once a month.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te told sailors aboard a combat-ready warship at a major base in the Taiwan Strait on Friday that he had their backs, thanking them for safeguarding Taiwanese security at a time of heightened tensions with Beijing.China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory over the strong objections of the government in Taipei
Chinese officials boarded and then seized a Taiwanese fishing boat operating near China's coast close to a Taiwan-controlled island and took it to a Chinese port, the Taiwan coast guard said late on Tuesday in a further escalation of tensions.China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has ramped up pressure on Taipei since President Lai Ching-te took office in May
Taiwan's defence minister said on Tuesday that they have a "grasp" of the situation after pictures appeared online of a Chinese nuclear submarine surfacing in the sensitive Taiwan Strait near Taiwanese fishermen.The narrow strait that separates Taiwan from China is a frequent source of tension.
Taiwan's homegrown submarine programme will remain on track, the defence minister said on Wednesday, after the head of the programme resigned due to what he said were unfair attacks against him and the military.Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has made the submarine programme a key part of an ambitious project to modernise its armed forces as Beijing stages almost daily military