Angeline Tan

Joseph Shen Bin, a bishop appointed by the Chinese Communist Party, exhorted the Shanghainese clergy to study and preach CCP ideology, including General Secretary Xi Jinping's thoughts on the sinicization of religion.

Russia's navy is in the midst of making its presence felt in the Indo-Pacific region. According to media reports in November, Russia deployed warships, including corvettes Gromky, Rezky and Hero of Russia Aldar Tsydenzhapov, together with support vessel Pechenga, to the South China Sea for training purposes.

On October 2, Vietnam protested to China over what it said was an assault on a Vietnamese fishing boat on September 29 in the disputed South China Sea waters that wounded at least 10 fishermen.

The Philippines has been proactive in delineating its own territories amid a face-off with China in the disputed South China Sea. On November 8, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr signed two laws, the Maritime Zones Act and Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act, maintaining the degree of his country's maritime boundaries and right to resources. He added that the two Acts abide by international law and UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The Chinese military is building a new counter-stealth radar system on a contested reef in the South China Sea that would considerably increase its regional surveillance capabilities, according to a September 16 satellite image.

Though the group is often slandered, its leader said they are "on the side of natural law and human rights as they were from the beginning."

From October 6 to 11, Southeast Asian leaders convened for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Laos that was scheduled to include territorial disputes in the South China Sea. However, when the summit ended on October 11, the 10-member bloc was unable to find a consensus on the disputes.

On October 7, Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr and South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was on a state visit to Manila, upgraded bilateral defense ties to a “strategic partnership”, amid existing territorial conflicts with China.

Military clashes involving China and the U.S. in the South China Sea will be “increasingly likely” during Donald Trump's second presidential term, but China will be more prepared this time for such skirmishes, according to Zhou Bo, military analyst and retired People's Liberation Army (PLA) officer, in a November 19 South China Morning Post report.

Thitu Island, the largest of the Philippine-administered islands and second largest naturally occurring island in Spratly Islands, South China Sea, is one of the world's most fiercely disputed maritime locations.