South China Sea

The Philippine president said cases against former Speaker Martin Romualdez were near filing and reaffirmed the 2016 maritime award. The public record still contains neither a criminal information nor a new operating order.

In one week, Iran, China, the US and the EU all reached for the same move: stop a ship, demand its papers, call it law enforcement. None of them called it war. That's the trick — and it isn't going away.