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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewed a call to China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s vast claims in the South China Sea and warned that Washington is obligated to defend treaty ally Philippines if its forces, vessels or aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters. Blinken’s statement, issued by the U.S. Embassy in Manila on Tuesday, was released on the sixth anniversary of the 2016 decision by an arbitration tribunal set up in The Hague under the United Nations Convention on the Law…

By Hugo Dobson, Professor of Japan’s International Relations, University of Sheffield and Kristian Magnus Hauken, Teaching Associate in East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield Sheffield (UK), Jul 9 (The Conversation) Our reaction upon hearing the news of the shooting of former prime minister Shinzo Abe was one of shock and incredulity in equal measure. What followed was a frenzy of trying to piece news reports and gossip together to make sense of events, until his eventual death was announced a few hours later. At first glance, Abe’s assassination harks back…

President Joe Biden, preparing for a trip to Saudi Arabia amid criticism of its poor human rights record, defended his decision in a newspaper opinion piece, insisting that he had long supported reforms and sought to reorient but not rupture relations with a longstanding strategic partner. In the article posted online Saturday night by The Washington Post, Biden pointed to developments in the Middle East that he contended had made the region more stable and secure than when the Trump administration ended, among them intense diplomacy as well as military…