The leader of Mujahideen Indonesia Timur (MIT – Mujahideen of East Indonesia), Shaykh Abu Wardah Santoso (a.k.a. Abu Yahya), revealed his face for the first time on July 10 in a six-minute, professionally-made jihadist video posted on YouTube. An armed Santoso stands flanked by two... MORE

Following the Philippines 2013 General Election, President Benigno Aquino III’s position is strengthened for the second half of his single six-year term. On May 13, Filipino voters elected Aquino allies in nine of the twelve contested Senate seats, where his allies now control 13 of... MORE

Second Thomas Shoal, a low tide coral reef located 105 nautical miles from the Philippines’ Palawan Island, is likely to become the next flashpoint in the South China Sea. The shoal—which is 15 kilometers long and five kilometers wide and is known as Ayungin in... MORE

China’s policy toward the South China Sea dispute remains fundamentally unchanged under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. Over the past six months, Beijing has tried to reassure neighboring countries of China’s peaceful rise, but also its determination to uphold its territorial and jurisdictional claims... MORE

From January through May, the South China Sea dispute continued to trend in a negative direction. Consistent with the pattern of developments over the past several years, the dispute continued to be characterized by an action-reaction dynamic in which attempts by one of the claimants—most... MORE

The rise of Santoso (a.k.a Abu Warda, a.k.a. Abu Yahya) as Indonesia’s most wanted militant is forcing the country’s elite counterterrorist unit, Densus 88, to focus on his Sulawesi-based network – Mujahidin Indonesian Timur (MIT) (Jakarta Globe, November 5, 2012). Since 2012, MIT has targeted... MORE

When Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his Burmese counterpart U. Thein Sein in Sanya on April 5, the usual sunny platitudes about enhancing “all-round cooperation” were dampened by veiled references to the threat of Western encroachment in the Southeast Asian country and the rocky... MORE

Tensions in the South China Sea once again appear to be on the rise as recent Chinese naval activity has attracted the attention of regional actors. On March 26, Hanoi publicly complained that a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy vessel had set a Vietnamese fishing... MORE

In January, reports surfaced that Laos would borrow money from China to finance a $7 billion, 260-mile rail project connecting the Lao capital of Vientiane to the Chinese border (Ming Pao [Hong Kong], January 15;Global Times, January 10; RFA, December 2, 2012). The project, by... MORE

In a surprise move on January 22, the Philippine government informed the Chinese embassy in Manila that it unilaterally would submit the two countries’ overlapping jurisdictional claims in the South China Sea to international legal arbitration at the United Nations (UN). Manila’s audacious move is... MORE