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China, Philippines clash in South China Sea despite efforts to rebuild trust

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Reporting by Karen Lema in Manila and Antoni Slodkowski in Beijing; Editing by Kim Coghill, William Mallard and David Goodman

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Chinese Navy survey ship entered Japanese waters, Japan's defence ministry says

A Chinese Navy survey vessel briefly entered Japanese territorial waters on Saturday, Japan's defence ministry said.

Open questions | Why there’s no quick fix in the South China Sea disputes, and war ‘cannot be ruled out’

• An expert on the contested waterway, Wu Shicun calls for rival claimants to work together to demilitarise – and says Beijing should take the lead

How do you assess the current situation in the South China Sea?

Secondly, rival claimants have ramped up their unilateral behaviour in the disputed waters. Namely, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia who are all eager to reinforce their presence in contested waters after the US abandoned neutrality in the South China Sea dispute and as the window narrows for negotiations on a code of conduct.

When the talks started in 2013, it was believed the rival claimants were looking for a set of rules as a way to regulate China’s land reclamation activities and restrain its expanding maritime powers and law enforcement. But now – with China having completed its island-building – rival claimants are thinking of building their own islands or trying to cement control over disputed waters. That means countries are now less motivated about the code of conduct talks.

So while negotiations are still going on at the working group level or at the level of senior officials, progress is very slow – or there is no progress at all.

The code covers a wide range of contentious issues and it needs the nod from China and the 10 Asean member states before it can go ahead.

There is no agreement on whether it will be legally binding. Its geographical scope is also contentious: Vietnam wants to include the Xisha [Paracel] Islands; China believes it should only cover the Nansha [Spratly] Islands; the Philippines wants it to cover not just the Nansha Islands but also Huangyan Island [Scarborough Shoal].

There is the issue of third parties. For example, whether the US should be allowed to conduct military exercises in the South China Sea. Or whether companies from countries outside the region should be allowed to carry out oil and gas exploration in these waters.

Another issue is whether the final code of conduct will have to be passed by the parliaments of each signatory. Also, China sees it as a mechanism for crisis management, while rival claimants such as Vietnam and the Philippines see it as a dispute settlement mechanism.

China has territorial disputes with a number of Southeast Asian countries, but why do you think disputes with the Philippines stand out?

Let’s review the history. The Philippines was the first country to violate China’s rights in the South China Sea in the 1970s, when China was in the grip of the Cultural Revolution. Then-president Ferdinand Marcos Snr sent the military to take over a number of islands, including Feixin [Flat] Island and Zhongye [Thitu] Island.

Beijing and Taipei didn’t respond militarily and Manila in 1971 gained control of more islands and reefs. The Philippines carried out five military operations and illegally took over eight Chinese islands and reefs – not including Renai Jiao [Second Thomas Shoal].

The Philippines is the only US treaty ally in the South China Sea, and what Manila is doing in these waters echoes Washington’s strategic realignment that seeks to contain China’s rise.

China stuck to its “four noes” policy in that 2016 case – no acceptance, no participation, no recognition and no implementation. Do you think that was wise? What lessons can China learn from that ruling?

I see no problem with the “four noes” policy. China regards the South China Sea dispute as a very complex issue – unparalleled in the global context – that involves many countries with overlapping claims, and one that can only be resolved through bilateral negotiation.

If China had taken part in the arbitration it would have been inconsistent with the usual practice of resolving maritime disputes through diplomatic negotiation and consultation.

But there are things that China can reflect on, such as whether it should have taken stronger countermeasures against the Philippines. Could Huangyan Island have been reclaimed? I think it was possible. Could China have removed the Philippine warship from Renai Jiao? I think it could have.

Instead, China issued a rebuke but stopped short of taking countermeasures after the Rodrigo Duterte administration said it wanted to improve relations.

It is unlikely that the arbitration ruling would have had such a negative impact if there were strong countermeasures in place. Manila would also have been less likely to launch a second arbitration case.

Do you think China’s response should be the same if the Philippines initiates a second case, or if rival claimants like Vietnam or Malaysia file their own cases?

The Philippines has signalled that it will seek a second arbitration and the possibility is very high. In doing so, Manila would be trying to consolidate its control over disputed reefs – including Houteng Jiao [Iroquois Reef] and Renai Jiao – that it claims as part of its exclusive economic zone.

The Philippines is also trying to win the sympathy from the international community so that it can continue to control Renai Jiao and perhaps try to return to Huangyan Island. A Philippine [coastguard] ship is currently refusing to leave Xianbin Jiao [Sabina Shoal], and the Philippines has grounded ships several times at Sandy Cay [Tiexian Jiao] that were then removed by China.

I don’t know how China will react if the Philippines files a second arbitration case, but I believe it won’t be the same as eight years ago – it won’t be that simple.

After a confrontation at sea, China often says it acted “professionally” or with “restraint” – but other countries see its actions as provocative. How do you explain this?

There’s no standards for right and wrong when it comes to the South China Sea any more. Now, whatever China does is wrong. And whatever violates China’s rights and interests is right. The “discourse power” is not on China’s side.

If you look at maps from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) – from the government of the Republic of China and even from the US – you can see “China” written in pinyin in parentheses behind the Xisha Islands.

In 1931, after Imperial Japan seized northeast China, France – which had colonised Indochina – was deeply worried about the threat to its geopolitical interests in the region if Japan moved south. So France took control of nine islands and reefs [including Zhongye Island] in the South China Sea.

But those islands and reefs were originally China’s. Beijing has never said that the whole of the South China Sea belongs to China, but that these islands and reefs should be returned to the Chinese people.

China has been criticised for recent incidents when its coastguard fired water cannons at Philippine vessels near Renai Jiao. To me, this showed restraint and they could have been a lot tougher. But the narrative is now upside down – China is the victim, but in the current narrative China has become the invader.

What is the effect of the great power rivalry between China and the US on the South China Sea disputes?

The South China Sea has become an important factor for the US to sustain its hegemony in the western Pacific and maintain its maritime primacy. As China expands its maritime power, the US tends to believe that China wants to drive it out of the South China Sea. But China doesn’t want to do that.

The significance of the South China Sea for China is more than the islands and reefs that are illegally occupied by neighbouring countries. It is a crucial sea lane for China and provides important access to the western Pacific and Indian Ocean.

Also, if China suffers a nuclear strike it will launch a retaliatory strike from the South China Sea.

I think the US has seen this, and that’s why it started to provoke China in the South China Sea and tried to jeopardise China’s ties with rival claimants. The issue should be viewed against the backdrop of the power rivalry between China and the US. The US has abandoned its neutrality in the South China Sea disputes because it knew it was not in its strategic interest to be neutral. In this context, as long as there is competition between China and the US the South China Sea issues will not be resolved simply through negotiation and consultation.

According to a report by US think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Vietnam has accelerated its land reclamation in the South China Sea in recent months. What’s your assessment of this?

China should take countermeasures against Vietnam’s illegal behaviour in the South China Sea.

First, it has violated the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and changed the status quo. After the land reclamation, military deployment can be expected. And if you look at the depth of Vietnam’s security cooperation with the US and Japan, it is possible that the military facilities Vietnam builds in the South China Sea could be offered to Japan and the US. That would significantly compromise China’s defence, deterrence and military projection in the South China Sea.

Vietnam’s land reclamation is taking place in some of the best locations in the South China Sea and once finished it could be a game-changer for the geopolitical landscape.

This has also set a bad precedent. Maybe China protested quietly, but without international pressure Vietnam will continue with these activities. We need to keep up international pressure through diplomatic notes or countermeasures and with a certain level of transparency.

Some Americans are confused as to why China has so far taken no action against Vietnam while keeping such a close eye on the grounded Philippine warship [used as a military outpost] at Renai Jiao. The land reclamation has more of a negative impact than the Philippine ship, so is this a double standard? In the past, China has used diplomatic pressure and even maritime operations against Vietnamese island-building and unilateral oil and gas exploration.

Meanwhile, Vietnam has constantly protested against what China has done in the Xisha Islands. Even a hotpot restaurant on Yongxing [Woody] Island drew a protest from Vietnam.

Hanoi said in June that it was ready to hold talks with Manila on their overlapping continental shelf claims. What impact could that have on the maritime dispute between Beijing and Hanoi?

On the surface it is the Philippines taking the lead, but behind this I think it is Vietnam attempting to consolidate its illegal controls in the South China Sea. Vietnam’s strategy is very clear – it is using land reclamation to consolidate its illegal gains and develop military and civil facilities in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile, Vietnam joined Malaysia in 2009 in a joint submission relating to a southern area of the South China Sea. And in December 2022, Vietnam signed an agreement with Indonesia on the demarcation of their exclusive economic zones, part of which fall within China’s dash line. That creates a dilemma for China since it will have to deal with a third country if it rejects Vietnam’s delimitation.

For a long time, Beijing has taken the approach of “setting aside sovereignty disputes and seeking joint development” when it comes to maritime disputes. Do you think this is working?

I don’t think there’s any problem with the general principle, but under the 2016 arbitration ruling, joint development has reached a dead end.

The tribunal ruled that none of the Nansha Islands are legally islands that are entitled to a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, and it rejected China’s claim to the entirety of Nansha Islands as a single archipelagic feature. So from the perspective of Vietnam and the Philippines, there’s no dispute with China in the Nansha Islands, so there’s no need for joint exploration. The unilateral oil and gas exploration is actually based on the ruling.

The principle is part of China’s goodwill to ensure peace and stability in the South China Sea and it is a temporary arrangement before disputes are resolved. But no countries really believe in China’s initiative now, and that’s the biggest challenge. So the possibility of joint exploration becoming a reality is extremely low.

China and the Philippines did set up the Intergovernmental Joint Steering Committee on Oil and Gas Development in October 2019, when oil firms from the two sides started talks. China also proposed three areas for cooperation on oil and gas, but no progress has been made and a memorandum of understanding was ended before Duterte left office.

An agreement was signed in 2005 on joint marine seismic surveys by China, the Philippines and Vietnam but that expired in 2008.

With so many factors at play, how can countries think of engaging in joint oil and gas exploration? China will continue to push for joint development but it should harbour no illusions.

Do you think China has plans for more artificial island-building?

If China is willing to build new islands, it can do so at any time. But I don’t think it’s necessary at this stage.

Existing islands in Xisha can be developed and civilian facilities expanded – they could be opened to the international community in the future.

In the Nansha Islands, new reclamation works are only necessary if China is provoked. For example, if Vietnam were to reclaim too much land, or if the Philippines were to increase its control over Renai Jiao, China would have to retaliate.

In that case, would it be possible to reclaim Huangyan Island? I don’t think it’s impossible. It’s not necessary at the moment, but if China is forced to take a final step as a countermeasure against the US and the Philippines, I think it would be necessary to take that kind of approach.

What about the possibility of a war breaking out in the South China Sea?

The possibility of war cannot be ruled out 100 per cent. For example, on June 17 when the Chinese coastguard seized firearms from Filipino sailors [at Renai Jiao] during a confrontation, a trigger could have accidentally been pulled – you can’t rule out the possibility of armed conflict.

But it would not be easy for the US to step in, and be willing to have a direct conflict with China for the Philippines.

There are many factors behind the high risk of collision between China and the US. They include the increasing frequency of joint anti-China patrols in the South China Sea, some of which have taken place in disputed waters. Also the multinational Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea is not binding. China and the US still don’t have an effective mechanism to manage crises at sea. And Chinese maritime militia have a large presence in these waters. A collision could easily happen without a proper crisis management mechanism.

Concerns about this risk could partly explain why the US pushed for military-to-military communication with China to be resumed after the leaders met in November, and why the Americans pressed for calls between senior military officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

It will not be simple if an armed conflict breaks out – it’s not 2001, when the two fighter jets collided. The consequences will be more serious.

Do you think there’s a way to resolve the territorial disputes in the South China Sea?

A new consensus is needed. For example, can the rival claimants work together to demilitarise the South China Sea? Let’s forget about military deployment on those islands and reefs.

If a code of conduct can’t be agreed, could other agreements be reached to slowly demilitarise the South China Sea? Every claimant could offer an island to develop civilian facilities including scientific stations and environmental research centres to monitor sea levels and restore coral reefs.

China should take the lead by providing an island – like Meiji Jiao [Mischief Reef] – where an oceanic observatory could be built and scientists from the Philippines and Vietnam could be invited to take part in it.

There’s no quick solution for the South China Sea disputes. From China’s perspective, these islands and reefs belong to China. From the point of view of rival claimants, it’s impossible for them to just return the islands and reefs to China. Maintaining the status quo is all we can do, and then we can start to talk about demilitarisation, about environmental protection, about sustainable fishing.

Meanwhile, countries from outside the region should not be allowed to step in. China – as the largest littoral country of the South China Sea – will take more countermeasures if other nations are encouraged by the US to confront it, and it will become an endless loop.

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Trending topics, report on u.s.-china strategic competition in south and east china seas.

The following is the Aug. 26, 2024, Congressional Research Service report, U.S.-China Strategic Competition in South and East China Seas: Background and Issues for Congress.

From the report

Over the past 10 to 15 years, the South China Sea (SCS) has emerged as an arena of strategic competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China). China’s actions in the SCS—including extensive island-building and base-construction activities at sites that it occupies in the Spratly Islands, as well as actions by its maritime forces to assert China’s claims against competing claims by regional neighbors such as the Philippines and Vietnam—have heightened concerns among U.S. observers that China is gaining effective control of the SCS, an area of strategic, political, and economic importance to the United States and its allies and partners. Actions by China’s maritime forces at the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea (ECS) are another concern for U.S. observers. PRC domination of China’s near-seas region—meaning the SCS and ECS, along with the Yellow Sea—could substantially affect U.S. strategic, political, and economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere.

Potential broader U.S. goals for U.S.-China strategic competition in the SCS and ECS include but are not necessarily limited to the following: fulfilling U.S. security commitments in the Western Pacific, including treaty commitments to Japan and the Philippines; maintaining and enhancing the U.S.-led security architecture in the Western Pacific, including U.S. security relationships with treaty allies and partner states; maintaining a regional balance of power favorable to the United States and its allies and partners; defending the principle of peaceful resolution of disputes and resisting the emergence of an alternative “might-makes-right” approach to international affairs; defending the principle of freedom of the seas, also sometimes called freedom of navigation; preventing China from becoming a regional hegemon in East Asia; and pursuing these goals as part of a larger U.S. strategy for competing strategically and managing relations with China.

Potential specific U.S. goals for U.S.-China strategic competition in the SCS and ECS include but are not necessarily limited to the following: dissuading China from carrying out additional base-construction activities in the SCS, moving additional military personnel, equipment, and supplies to bases at sites that it occupies in the SCS, initiating island-building or base-construction activities at Scarborough Shoal in the SCS, declaring straight baselines around land features it claims in the SCS, or declaring an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the SCS; and encouraging China to reduce or end operations by its maritime forces at the Senkaku Islands in the ECS, halt actions intended to put pressure against Philippine-occupied sites in the Spratly Islands, provide greater access by Philippine fisherman to waters surrounding Scarborough Shoal or in the Spratly Islands, adopt the U.S./Western definition regarding freedom of the seas, and accept and abide by the July 2016 tribunal award in the SCS arbitration case involving the Philippines and China.

The issue for Congress is whether the Administration’s strategy for competing strategically with China in the SCS and ECS is appropriate and correctly resourced, and whether Congress should approve, reject, or modify the strategy, the level of resources for implementing it, or both. Decisions that Congress makes on these issues could substantially affect U.S. strategic, political, and economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere.

Download the document here .

U.S. Naval Institute Staff

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The Republican Plan to Challenge a Harris Victory

How a right-wing takeover of an obscure, unelected board in georgia could swing the election..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

[THEME MUSIC]

At the Democratic National Convention, party officials are celebrating polls showing that Kamala Harris is now competitive with Donald Trump in every major swing state across the country. Today, the story of how Republican officials in one of those swing states have taken over an obscure, unelected board to lay the groundwork for challenging a potential Harris victory this fall. My colleague Nick Corasaniti explains.

It’s Thursday, August 22.

Nick, we’re talking to you from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but you’re not there primarily to cover Kamala Harris’s nomination. Instead, you have been focused, for a couple of years now, on the Republican election strategy for this election.

Yeah, so what I’ve been focused on, really, over the past four years, since the 2020 election and the efforts of Trump and his allies to overturn his loss, is this growing movement on the right to disrupt, and erode, and destabilize the American electoral process.

A movement that really never went away, even though many people stopped paying attention to it.

Exactly, this has been very much alive and very much active, just more in the shadows. This is a loose network of political operatives, of activists, of lawyers, of local organizations and national organizations of conservative think tanks, and sometimes even state Republican parties. And they’ve been trying to find weaknesses in the American electoral infrastructure. And they’ve got a couple strategies that they’ve really deployed over the past four years to help get them there.

Such as what?

One of them has just been changing laws regarding voting, changing how votes are cast, changing vote by mail strategies, changing who governs the electoral process. But as we head into 2024, what’s really come into focus is this obsession with the certification system in the American electoral process.

And just explain that, the certification system.

The way it’s been described to me by other election experts is that when it comes to these officials role in the certification process, it’s almost like a scorekeeper in a basketball game. They’re watching. As different points are scored, they’re tallying it up.

When you get to the end of the game, they look backwards and say, all of these points, let’s make sure all of these points add up to the final score. It does. This person won. This person lost. Here it is. It’s official.

There’s no going back and investigating. Was there a foul committed in the second quarter? Was the toe on the line in the third quarter that should have been a 3 instead of a 2? That was the referee’s job at the time. The scorekeeper just tallies the score and people accept the scores.

And that’s where these local election officials fit in to the certification process. Their job is designed to be very important, but very simple. Make sure the numbers add up and sign off on the results.

But over the past four years, these loose networks of conservative election activists and Republican-aligned groups have been trying to redefine and even remake the certification process itself in places all over the country.

[TENSE MUSIC]

And where do they find that certification can be challenged and where they could maybe play a big role in sowing doubts around this year’s election? They’ve tried this wherever they can, but with little success. They tried it in Arizona. They’ve tried it in Nevada, in Michigan.

And yet, each time, they’ve been running up against settled case law that kind of protects the certification process. Now, what some of these activists and organizations have tried to do is change that law. And that’s what brings us to Georgia.

Why Georgia?

Georgia was a big surprise in 2020 when President Biden won that by 12,000 votes. It was the first Democrat to win in generations. Yet, former President Trump just wouldn’t believe it. And there was countless allegations of suitcases full of ballots, corrupted machines, all disproven multiple times.

It’s long been this fever swamp of doubts about elections that have festered now for four years. But this election is looking different. For a long time, President Biden was trailing former President Trump significantly in the state. But with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, it’s suddenly very close.

Trump cannot afford, really, to lose Georgia. If he loses Georgia, he has a very slim, if any path to winning the presidency. And that’s refocused a lot of the attention on the long-standing effort in Georgia to find vulnerabilities to insure against a possible loss. In just the past few months, they’ve had some of their most notable successes in infiltrating or influencing the electoral process in Georgia.

And what does that success look like exactly?

This really begins with the takeover of the Georgia State Election Board, a five member board. In the beginning of this year, the board was pretty split. It takes three votes to pass a new rule.

And the majority of the board members were either more moderate Republicans, voting to either preserve the status quo or improve rules, along with one Democrat. And then there were these other two members who were proposing new rule changes. One of whom, Dr. Janice Johnston, is a very close ally of those right-wing networks.

We uncovered recordings of her participating in their meetings. But they didn’t have the votes to get these new rules through. The effort to really change that makeup starts in February.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

These two members proposed a rule that would effectively get rid of mail-in voting in the state. They got shot down by the three majority. And the key vote is cast by a man named Ed Lindsey. He’s a former Republican State legislator. And he really becomes the central target of this campaign, designed to force him to leave the state election board.

And it’s not just the activists who are going after him. It’s Trump-aligned think tanks, it’s the state party, it’s local Republican County officials. Eventually, after months of this pressure campaign, the dam breaks in May, and Ed Lindsey steps down.

The speaker of the Georgia House appoints his replacement, a woman named Janelle King, who it becomes clear with the next few meetings, will be siding with those other two members on the board. And so suddenly that 3-2 split swings in the other direction. And these more right-wing members find themselves in a position of power with the ability to pass new rules and regulations.

And what does this new 3-2 majority start to accomplish and pass as a result?

The most significant thing that they did, and that’s really happened in Georgia for the right-wing election activist network, happened a few weeks ago when the State Board of Election issued a rule saying that local election officials at the county level could conduct a reasonable inquiry, as they were certifying the election. And that’s all they said.

But when you read between the lines there and you think about everything that’s happened with certification and the questions that came up in 2020 and since then, it seemed like a permissible window that could give local election officials the authority to say, I have doubts about this election, or I don’t want to certify, or I need to see more evidence. And we get into a situation where they could be running out the clock and missing very important deadlines that could create chaos, uncertainty, or move something to the courts.

Nick, how do the three conservative board members who passed this new rule describe it and defend it?

I’ve talked to some of them and I’ve watched hours of these state election board meetings. And the way they frame it is that we should all want investigations and ways to double check our election results to make sure they’re secure. And we’re not changing the deadlines that say, you must certify by this date.

They defend it as a step towards transparency. But what a lot of election experts, and Democrats, and even some Republicans, including the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia, said was this will only lead to more questions. And perhaps nothing confirmed their fears more that this was a plan to destabilize election certification in the event of a Trump loss, than former President Trump’s own words at a rally in Atlanta earlier this month —

Thank you. I’m thrilled to be back in the great State of Georgia. I love Georgia.

— where he called out by name the three members of the Georgia State Election Board.

Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, Janelle King, three people are all pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory. They’re fighting.

And one of them was in the audience —

Are they here? Where are they?

— right in front of the Trump podium. Janice Johnston stood up and waved to the crowd.

Thank you. What a job. Thank you.

And their response was an extensive ovation.

Thank you. Wow.

Here you have former President Trump blessing, seemingly, what these three conservative board members are up to, seeming to encourage them to keep going, and appearing to connect the work that they’re up to with his own campaign and political future in this election.

And I think it’s important to take a quick step back and just think about how bizarre it is that a presidential candidate knows the names of local election officials in a state so well that he has to call them out by name and say that they’re helping to fight for his victory. I’ve been covering presidential campaigns now for over a dozen years, you as well, Michael. I can’t ever remember hearing anything like that before.

Right, because it’s never happened before. A president has never taken an interest in the mechanics of a certification of an election before an election in a state like Georgia, the way Donald Trump now has.

Exactly. And so it sends up a warning signal not just for people in Georgia, but really anyone across the country, Democrat, Republican, election official, anyone who’s concerned about this presidential election and people’s willingness to accept its results.

We’ll be right back.

Nick, I want to play out a scenario with you for this fall, and how the story you’ve been telling us so far might become the worst case scenario that a lot of people fear. Let’s say it’s election day, and these Georgia Board of Election rules are in place. The results come in and they are extremely close.

Maybe Kamala Harris is up by 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 votes in Georgia. And maybe the whole election rests on Georgia. Paint the picture of what this might look like.

This would exactly be the nightmare scenario that Democrats and election officials are concerned about across the country. Local election officials in Georgia have to certify the election by November 12. Now, with these new rules in place, imagine a county or two in Georgia — and it doesn’t even have to be Fulton County or a county that would make it determinative. It could just be any county. — raise their hand and says, I’ve got evidence of fraud or even, I have concerns and I need to investigate this fraud.

And they continue their investigation and they blow past that deadline. We’re into our first legal gray area here. And now we’re getting media attention.

And now the Trump campaign and Republican allies are making this a story and a political story. And it creates this movement similar to what we saw in 2020.

But I think what everyone has to remember about 2020 is there was a real vacuum of evidence. What these laws and these local officials would be doing is creating at least that veneer of evidence. Now, we’re heading towards December 11, which is the federal deadline to certify slates of electors to the Electoral College.

And if we’re still in this gray area, you could see secretary of state or a governor saying, the election is not certified. I don’t know what I can do here. And missing that deadline furthers the political legitimacy of the doubts being spread by right-wing allies. And then we’re in a pretty precarious position heading into Congress’s certification of the Electoral College, which happens on January 6.

Now there’s pretext for, say, multiple senators or members of the House to say, there’s evidence of fraud in Georgia. And who knows if that’s all that we know about. There could be more. And it becomes, again, this political movement using these veneers of evidence to possibly throw into question the results in Congress. And that’s how it could spiral to a really dangerous place. But it has to miss all of these checkpoints and lawsuits, and places where courts could come in, to get to that.

Let’s talk about those checkpoints and potential places where such a scenario would stop in its tracks. And what Democrats, the Harris campaign, and mainstream Republicans who don’t want this scenario to happen, can do and are doing to try to ensure that this doesn’t come to pass.

One big thing that they did in the aftermath of January 6, was Democrats and Republicans in Congress passed a new law, the Electoral Count Reform Act, that sought to shore up any vulnerabilities in the federal congressional certification. This is the first presidential election where that law will be in place. And while it may have set a slightly earlier or tighter deadline for federal certification, it also took away a lot of different avenues to try and penetrate, or alter, or undermine that process. It remains to be seen exactly how it functions and how it will be challenged.

But they’re also trying to find very explicit case law, state law, that contain words like, “You shall certify an election.” Shall means must, to make it so clear in precedent that there’s no wiggle room. You shall certify, and the election must go forward.

And I assume they’re doing that because they want to present that information to a judge in order to shut down any effort to question the election results.

Exactly. The courts become the avenue to force these local election officials or whoever is refusing to certify to certify the election. And they have evidence of this working in the past at the state level. Arizona, there’s been challenges to certification in the past. And the court has ruled pretty clearly, no, you must certify. The same thing has happened in multiple states across the country.

There’s a good body of evidence and legal precedent that these local election officials must certify. There is no discretion. And basically, that means that if we were to go back to our scorekeeper analysis, you’re the scorekeeper and tally up the scores and send them to us. If there’s issues, we have other means of investigating that or taking it to court.

What else are those worried about this scenario doing at the moment?

I think you can look at just how big the legal effort and the legal teams are getting on both sides. And let’s start with the Democrats. They’ve hired hundreds of lawyers, both at the national level, working within the Harris campaign and the DNC. And then they’ve worked with local lawyers in multiple battleground states who have expert knowledge and ability to work within state law. And they say, it’s the biggest legal team they’ve ever assembled.

On the Republican side, they’ve also been staffing up this massive legal team within the RNC. They call it their Election Integrity Unit. And what they’ve been doing at the moment is filing a lot of litigation that could be used as possible evidence of a problematic election, talking about cleaning voter rolls or challenges to absentee ballots that arrive after the election date or were postmarked before.

Similar arguments that we heard in 2020. Now, they’re bringing them beforehand. And so what this amounts to is this legal arms race, where lawyers on both sides are prepping for this postelection litigation battle that really is happening at a scale that we haven’t seen before.

Nick, I’m curious what people expect might be the role of in the case of Georgia, the state’s two most important Republican elected officials — the governor, Brian Kemp, the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — who four years ago stood up pretty courageously in the face of concerns from members of their own party and said, no, everything looks to be quite kosher here. And they tried to shut down the efforts to object to the results. Do people anticipate that those two officials will do the same this time around? And might that be the thing that ultimately closes out this effort to question the results?

It certainly could. And Secretary of State Raffensperger has been outwardly critical of the State Board of Elections already. He’s issued statements saying that they’re changing rules too close to the election, which is making it impossible for local election officials to keep up, which could create errors. He’s taking their own election integrity argument and using it against them, saying that this is actually making our election less secure.

As for Governor Kemp, he’s been very clear, since 2020, that he’s not willing to break the law. If any of these certification battles come down to court saying he must certify, he’ll do that. He’s a very conservative governor.

He was supportive of the new voting bills that a lot of Democrats and election experts said was suppressive. But he’s also pushed back when Trump has really targeted him on voting, including recently where he said, why are you attacking me? You need to go win an election, essentially.

I want to just level set with you for a minute. It seems from everything you’ve described here that this strategy in Georgia is very likely to rear its head, because all that has to happen is that a single local official needs to raise their hand and say, under these new state election board rules, I have concerns. And this cycle, this scenario you’ve described, gets triggered. We don’t know how far it will go, how long it will play out. But it seems quite likely that some version of this scenario could happen.

If the rules set by the state election board survives the likely legal challenges coming and is still in place in November, then, yes, I think we can probably expect at least one county or one of the local election officials to raise doubts and start that cycle of uncertainty that quickly moves into the political arena. And that’s where it’s most potent.

Right. And as you’ve explained here, what will feel a little bit different this time around, 2024 from 2020, is just how successful these election deniers have become at putting themselves in the positions of power, of themselves becoming the scorekeepers as they are with the Georgia State Elections Board. And so if they start to raise the questions, then it will mean these high ranking scorekeepers saying that something is wrong, somebody cheated. And that may, without any evidence at all, carry real weight with those inclined to doubt the results.

Exactly. I think when we look at polling and we ask what was for a very long time a simple question to answer, do you trust the results of elections? We’ve seen a large percentage of Republican voters say no. An AP poll about a year ago found that only 22 percent of Republican voters had a high confidence that votes in the upcoming presidential election would be counted accurately, compared to 71 percent of Democrats.

Which means about 80 percent of Republicans don’t have faith in elections.

Don’t have high confidence that votes in the upcoming presidential election will be accurate.

We’ve seen, really since the 2020 election, intensely partisan focused on what were once very apolitical bureaucratic positions. Now, these are going to be contested and there’s going to be recruitment for these. And it’s also very hard to quantify, because we’re talking about tens of thousands of offices across the country. And so it’s a scale that we can’t comprehend, and where all the little vulnerabilities could be or where all the little efforts to put someone on an election board who’s not going to act in good faith. That’s perhaps the unfortunate future of where this leads us.

Nick, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Here’s what else you need to know today. MIT disclosed that its first incoming class to be admitted since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action, experienced a precipitous drop in the percentage of Black, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander students. Compared to the class of 2027, which was admitted before the ban, in the class of 2028, the percentage of enrolled Black students at MIT dropped from 15 percent to 5 percent. And the percentage of Hispanic and Latino students dropped from 16 percent to 11 percent.

But the percentage of Asian-American students rose from 40 percent to 47 percent. The increase in Asian-American students is notable, because the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action was based in part on a lawsuit claiming that elite universities have discriminated against Asian-American applicants by holding them to a higher academic standard than other groups. And —

Soon and very soon, we’re going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, two idealistic, energetic immigrants, Immigrants!

How this child grew up to become the 47th president of the United States!

That is the best of America!

On the third night of the Democratic convention, Oprah Winfrey called on independent and undecided voters to cast their ballots for Kamala Harris. And Harris’s running mate, Governor Tim Walz, delivered a blistering critique of Donald Trump and Trump’s plans for a second term.

It’s an agenda nobody asked for. It’s an agenda that serves nobody except the richest and the most extreme amongst us.

And it’s an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors in need. Is it weird? Absolutely. Absolutely. But it’s also wrong. And it’s dangerous.

Today’s episode was produced by Olivia Natt, Asthaa Chaturvedi, and Eric Krupke. It was edited by Patricia Willens, with help from Lexie Diao and Michael Benoist, was fact-checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Dan Powell, Corey Schreppel, Rowan Niemisto, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

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At the Democratic National Convention, party officials are celebrating polls showing that Kamala Harris is now competitive with Donald Trump in every major swing state across the country.

But in one of those swing states, Republicans have laid the groundwork to challenge a potential Harris victory this fall, by taking over an obscure, unelected board.

Nick Corasaniti, a Times reporter who focuses on voting and elections, explains.

On today’s episode

Nick Corasaniti , a reporter covering national politics for The New York Times.

Background reading

The unelected body that shapes voting rules in Georgia has a new conservative majority, whose members question the state’s 2020 results. They now have new power to influence the results in 2024 .

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in close races across Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina , crucial swing states that Mr. Trump had seemed poised to run away with.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Fact-checking by Susan Lee .

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Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam and Nick Pitman.

Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections. More about Nick Corasaniti

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oa China's Media Diplomacy In The South China Sea Disputes Case Studies Of The Scarborough Shoal Stand-off And The Oil Rig Crisis

• Authors: Thi My Danh Le 1 , Mark Rolls 2
• View Affiliations Hide Affiliations Affiliations: 1 FPT University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 2 University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand *Corresponding author: [email protected]
• Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
• Source: Asian Studies , The Twelfth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS 12) , Jun 2022, Volume 1, p.320 - 330
• ISBN: 9789048557820
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5117/9789048557820/ICAS.2022.039
• Language: English
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The Scarborough Shoal stand-off and the oil rig crisis hold symbolic value to the Chinese. During the crises, China’s sovereignty claims over the South China Sea have been recounted several times. As the way that the Chinese government has mobilized media tools to cover the crises and to shape its national image of their rival(s) via its narratives turned the territorial controversies into nationalist demonstrations, and deteriorated the bilateral relations, the demand to understand how the crises and media diplomacy could impact on the bilateral relations and the peace in the region has increased. Media diplomacy occurs when a government sends its diplomatic messages to its target audiences through speeches, press conferences, visits, or even leaks. To succeed, a government needs to have the ability to predict how different stakeholders will consume its message and how its target audiences are likely to respond. The paper uses the theoretical framework of media diplomacy to analyze media reports in China to understand how China deployed media tactics to fulfill its political goals in the crises and whether media diplomacy can be used as one of the ways to resolve the tensions.

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ASEAN Centrality and the Major Powers: South China Sea Case Study

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Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea

Center for Preventive Action

China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea has steadily increased, resulting in heightened tensions with Southeast Asian claimant states, particularly the Philippines, at the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.

China’s sweeping claims of sovereignty over the sea—and the sea’s estimated 11 billion barrels of untapped  oil  and 190 trillion cubic feet of  natural gas —have antagonized competing claimants Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. As early as the 1970s, countries began to  claim  islands and various zones in the South China Sea, such as the Spratly Islands, which possess rich natural resources and fishing areas. The failure of Chinese and Southeast Asian leaders to resolve the disputes diplomatically could undermine international laws governing maritime disputes and encourage destabilizing arms buildups.

China maintains  [PDF] that, under international law, foreign militaries cannot conduct intelligence-gathering activities, such as reconnaissance flights, in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). According to the United States, claimant countries, under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), should have  freedom of navigation  through EEZs in the sea and are not required to notify claimants of military activities. In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled on a claim brought against China by the Philippines under UNCLOS,  ruling  in favor of the Philippines on almost every count. While China is a signatory to the treaty establishing the tribunal, it refuses to accept the court’s authority.

In recent years, satellite imagery has shown China’s increased efforts to reclaim land in the South China Sea by physically increasing the islands' size or creating new ones altogether. In addition to piling sand onto existing reefs, China has constructed ports, military installations, and airstrips—particularly in the  Paracel and Spratly Islands , where it has twenty and seven outposts, respectively. China has militarized  Woody Island  by deploying fighter jets, cruise missiles, and a radar system.

The United States, which maintains important interests in ensuring  freedom of navigation  and securing sea lines of communication (SLOCs), has  expressed support  for an agreement on a binding  code of conduct  and other confidence-building measures. China’s claims threaten SLOCs, which are important maritime passages that facilitate trade and the movement of naval forces. To protect its political, security, and economic  interests  in the region, the United States has challenged China’s assertive territorial claims and land reclamation efforts by conducting freedom of navigation operations and bolstering support for Southeast Asian partners. Washington’s defense treaty with Manila could draw the United States into a potential China-Philippines conflict over the substantial  natural gas deposits  or lucrative fishing grounds in disputed territory.

Also, in response to China’s assertive presence in the disputed territory, Japan has  sold  military ships and equipment to the Philippines and Vietnam to improve their maritime security capacity and to deter Chinese aggression.

Upon assuming office in June 2022, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. rejected the conciliatory stance toward China adopted by his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. The Philippines’ most contentious disputes with China center on the Second Thomas Shoal of the Spratly Islands, which lies within the Philippines’ 200-mile EEZ. In 1999, the Philippines intentionally grounded a ship to reinforce its territorial claims to the area which it calls the West Philippine Sea. Since then, the Philippine Coast Guard has conducted monthly resupply missions to its military contingent on the ship, known as the BRP Sierra Madre. Chinese Coast Guard vessels began to employ dangerous tactics to harass Philippine resupply missions in 2023, leading to heightened clashes. Collisions have become increasingly common, and the Chinese Coast Guard has used a military-grade laser and repeatedly fired water cannons against Philippine ships. On June 17, a Chinese vessel and a Philippine supply ship collided near the Second Thomas Shoal; both sides blamed the other for the incident.

Amid the rise in tensions with China, the Philippines has strengthened its partnerships with other Indo-Pacific neighbors. Marcos has signed deals to increase base access, joint exercise training, and weapons transfers with the United States. In March 2024, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that the United States’ Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines extended to both countries’ armed forces, public vessels, and aircraft in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, Japan has also stepped up its presence in recent years by selling military equipment to the Philippines and Vietnam to improve maritime security capacity. 

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NATO MARSEC Proceedings: Case Study of the dispute in the South China Sea

In September 2020 the CCDCOE Law Researcher Dr. Keiko KONO presented a case study at the 1st MARSEC annual conference. “Case Study of the dispute in the South China Sea: an Approach by Claimant Countries and ASEAN and Its Impact on Maritime Security in the Region” was also published in the The Proceeding book of NATO MARSEC Conference here .

Among multitudes of aspects of the dispute in the South China Sea, this article focuses on issues concerning what security challenges have been brought to Southeast Asia due to the

dispute and how claimant and other concerned countries as well as ASEAN as a whole are managing to settle the dispute. To that end, it briefly discusses how the dispute unfolded, in particular in relation to a legal proceeding at the arbitral tribunal brought by the Philippines.

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The South China Sea in Focus

Table of contents.

Report by Gregory B. Poling

Published July 17, 2013

Available Downloads

• Download PDF file of "The South China Sea in Focus" 6297kb

Satellite imagery and geospatial analysis tools offer an unprecedented opportunity to harness new technologies in order to help resolve boundary disputes. The South China Sea in Focus: Clarifying the Limits of Maritime Dispute uses these tools to provide a first and necessary step toward tackling the overlapping maritime disputes in the South China Sea: determining which waters are and are not in dispute under international law. The report opens with a set of geographic information system (GIS)–based maps that provide an easily understandable benchmark against which policymakers and academics can judge the claims and actions of the South China Sea claimants. More detailed color maps and methodological information follow for those who want to dig deeper into the claims and the report’s conclusions.

Gregory B. Poling

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