Interesting 60 Minutes interview with top US Navy leaders (a short 🧵)
P-CNO (current COMPACFLT) ADM Paparo:
PRC undertake "aggressive, unsafe, unprofessional intercepts where they move within single digits of feet of other aircraft."
cbsnews.com/news/u-s-navy-… This is much closer than released videos of PLAAF and PLANAF intercepts of US surveillance flights.

"Beijing says [bilateral relations] are at their lowest point since formal ties were established in 1979."
A short 🧵
... Beijing shifted strategy more than a decade ago to bring its new-found power to bear to advance its broader external objectives. 1/5
reuters.com/world/biden-ca… We should expect the PRC to provoke crises to look for concessions or to find the limits of our interests.
But if, during these crises, we keep the long view in mind and remember the PRC also desires stability, they will be unlikely to escalate beyond a manageable point.
2/5

If you don't subscribe to @noahbarkin's GMF Newsletter, you should: a 🧵.
In this month's letter:
"The manner in which China’s leadership has veered from one extreme to the other on COVID-19, without preparing the ground for such a shift, should be reassuring to no one."
1/6 "It is not an indication, as some might believe, that Beijing is returning to its senses but rather the latest sign of how unpredictable policy has become under XJP."
2/6

On-the-Record Press Call by Kurt Campbell, Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific
...Lots to unpack here. A theme to consider...Did China get played? Or did the US?
whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…🧵1/11 I agree, the PRC used the Speaker's visit to Taiwan as a pretext to change the status quo. True, the visit is not unprecedented, but he neglects that the last Speaker's visit was 25 years ago when the US was at peak power and China was much weaker. Things have changed... 2/11

Taipei accuses Beijing of trying to take control of Taiwan Strait
...“China is now determined to link the East and South China Seas through the TaiwanStrait so that this entire area becomes its internal waters”🧵
ft.com/content/1db5c9… This has long been a goal for the PLA. In 2010 I hosted a dialogue at the Naval War College with PLA officers and Chinese scholars. One participant was the PLA strategist (and an author of The Science of Military Strategy) MG Peng Guangqian, who spoke of the PLAN challenge ...

Relations between Russia and the PRC are "as strong as they have ever been...[with a professed] ‘no limits’ partnership [based on]...disdain for freedom and openness."
Very nice piece by @james_rogers and @p_triglavcanin
My summary and response. A 🧵 1/8
geostrategy.org.uk/britains-world… The authors argue the PRC and Russia share a world vision that seeks "to do away with the open international order...{and replace it with] a hierarchical system based on their own spheres of influence." 2/8

Chinese military officials in recent months have repeatedly asserted that the Taiwan Strait isn’t international waters during meetings with US counterparts, generating concern within the Biden administration
...Such assertions are absurd. 🧵
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… China is a party to UNCLOS, which sets the rules on coastal state zones, such as how to draw baselines, internal waters, territorial sea, EEZ, and high sea. It also establishes the international freedoms in the various zones. 2/6

🧵Highly significant statements by SECDEF Austin at the #SLD
(1) there is no change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan. (2) we committed to our 'One China' policy as enumerated in the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances, the Three Joint Communiques," defense.gov/News/News-Stor… Austin also made it clear that the United States does not support any unilateral changes to the status quo, and the United States does not support Taiwan independence.

During the Alaska meetings, China appears determined to play power politics to back up its confrontational attitude. First, there were the trials of Michael Spavor on Friday and Michael Kovrig today. Now, it is clear they are pressuring a US ally in the SCS. 1/n

https://twitter.com/PhilstarNews/status/1373483150152593416

These acts represent direct pressures on Canada and the Philippines, two US allies. Other SE Asian claimants will also take note in the wake of stalled, perhaps failed, COC negotiations. These negotiations failed because China wants what law rightfully gives its neighbors. 2/n

1/n
My view of Pompeii’s Statement on the SCS is:
1) In a legal sense, I don't see this as quite as dramatic as some others do. In my view it makes explicit a policy which was already implicit. It has consistently been US policy that China should abide by the arbitration ruling. 2/n
2) The arbitration ruling covers these areas. Further, it has always been our view that we do not take sides on sovereignty claims to islands, including in the SCS.

"A Natuna fisherman, complained ... that during the night “when there are no Indonesian navy patrols, foreign fishing vessels with trawls enter [Indonesian waters] and catch fish." They are accompanied by China Coast Guard vessels.
thediplomat.com/2020/03/indone… “the problem is China maintains that they have ‘traditional fishing rights’ there. Lately they also mentioned ‘maritime rights,’ although they never detail what these terms entail.”

CDC Coronavirus Press Briefing:
1/"Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare our communities for more cases and possibly sustained spread. This new virus represents a tremendous public health threat." 2/ "We don’t yet have a vaccine for this novel virus, nor do we have a medicine to treat it specifically. We are taking and will continue to take aggressive action to reduce the impact of this virus, that it will have on the communities in the U.S."

The significance of the news that Malaysia made a second submission (its first was in 2009 jointly with Vietnam) to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to define its continental shelf rights in the SCS should not be overlooked.
un.org/Depts/los/clcs… So here is a year end reminder for you:
Despite China's refusal to acknowledge, participate in, accept, or implement the SCS arbitration, international law continues to be used by Southeast Asians to build a wall of legitimacy that China will be unable to scale.