U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart met for the first time in Singapore on Friday, as Washington and Beijing seek to head off potential conflict in the region.

About 250 Filipinos live on Thitu Island, the largest and most inhabited island of the Spratlys, in the South China Sea. But Chinese ships are never far away.

A Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of an American B-52 bomber flying over the South China Sea, nearly causing an accident, the U.S. military said.

The country's film regulator has decided that a map shown in the movie does not depict China's controversial nine-dash line.

Film regulators in the Philippines are reviewing Barbie after a senator said a scene depicts a map that China uses to lay claim to nearly all of the South China Sea.

The Department of Defense announced the move that is widely seen as a way to deter China's influence in the region amid a visit to the Philippines by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

The U.S. military said that the incident occurred Dec. 21 when a Chinese jet fighter flew in front of and within 20 feet of the nose of a U.S. military reconnaissance plane.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had stressed the need for multilateral partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, which China's defense minister suggested was an attempt to back his country into a corner.

An investigation found that the USS Connecticut "grounded on an uncharted seamount," the 7th Fleet said. Eleven crew members were injured in the Oct. 2 collision.

A Defense Department official says nearly a dozen sailors were injured in the incident aboard the USS Connecticut. The U.S. 7th Fleet says the sub's nuclear power plant was not affected.

After threatening since last year to cancel it, President Rodrigo Duterte decided to restore the agreement that enables U.S. forces to operate in the Philippines. Here's why that matters.

China has provoked international alarm by massing ships in the South China Sea near a reef claimed by both China and the Philippines. Manila protested, calling for the flotilla's immediate withdrawal.

Most of the operation's activity focused on Chinese interests in the South China Sea but also included some content about U.S. politics.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper and his Chinese counterpart lectured one another in a 90-minute call as the highest level U.S. delegation in four decades plans a provocative visit to Taiwan.

China claims sovereignty over the vast majority of the economically important body of water, and in recent years, it has built artificial islands to bolster those claims.