Daily Express- BEIJING is using an "insidious" policy of coercion and pressure to assert its control over the South China Sea, a leading Asia analyst has said.
China has long claimed sovereignty over the disputed waters, saying that the entire waterway up to the coasts of the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan belongs to it. Beijing's claim is based on the U-shaped nine-dash line etched onto a map in the 1940s by a Chinese geographer. In 2016, an international court of arbitration dismissed China's territorial claims.
Despite the ruling, the People's Republic has in recent years built artificial islands in the waters claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia and dispatched military units to them.
Now Beijing is deploying another tactic to beef up its presence in the region and assert its control.....READ MORE
The Daily Express is a daily national middle-market tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson. Its sister paper, the Sunday Express, was launched in 1918.