SeaLight

08/29/2026

08/28/2026

How 🇨🇳 is Preparing a Blockade of Taiwan

SeaLight Executive Director Ray Powell and Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific? Podcast Host James Carouso speaks with retired U.S. Navy Captain Brent Sadler, a career submariner, former U.S. defense attaché in Malaysia, Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow, and author of two books: U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century and Naval Power in Action: Seizing the Initiative in the New Cold War with China.

In this clip, Brent explains China's increasing operations east of Taiwan for two reasons: 1. China is preparing for a blockade, which includes training to interdict shipping and anticipating a major conflict with the United States and its allies; and 2. China is using these operations diplomatically to change the status quo and normalize their presence, which lowers the threshold for conflict and gives them the element of surprise if they decide to attack Taiwan.

08/28/2026

🚨Why Should We Care if 🇨🇳 Dominates Maritime East Asia?

SeaLight Executive Director Ray Powell and Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific? Host James Carouso speak with retired U.S. Navy Captain Brent Sadler, a career submariner, former U.S. defense attaché in Malaysia, Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow and author of two books: U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century and Naval Power in Action: Seizing the Initiative in the New Cold War with China.

Brent explains that China is exercising growing control over maritime East Asia, as Beijing has spent decades building the military, commercial, and political leverage to do exactly that. He says this is not just a question of aircraft carriers, missiles, and hull counts, but also about China’s strategic commercial footprint in ports, shipping and repair infrastructure, distant-water fishing fleets, maritime militia, and the China Coast Guard.

08/26/2026

Kwangyin Liu (Host): "The quarantine has begun. That's the warning from Ray Powell, the retired US Air Force colonel who now runs Stanford's SeaLight project... He told CommonWealth that 🇨🇳 's actions now show a quarantine of 🇹🇼 is already underway."

Is China already carrying out a "quarantine" of Taiwan? In this episode of Taiwanology, the team behind CommonWealth Magazine's Broken Chain investigation explains how 1.8 billion vessel data points reveal a long-term pattern of China Coast Guard activity aimed at reshaping the maritime status quo a...

08/22/2026

"IS THE ALLEGATION TRUE?" is the question 🇨🇳Chinese Embassy Manila's spokesperson Ji Lingpeng asks the 🇵🇭 ' public to evaluate.

The answer is so blatantly & obviously 🚫 "NO! IT'S DISINFORMATION!" that no professional diplomat should want to be associated with it.

How provably false is it? Let me count the ways:

1️⃣. The 🇺🇸US "fuel hub" alleged to be sited at the now-closed Sanjia Steel plant is well known to be planned for the greater Davao area on Mindanao's *southern* coast, not on the *northern* coast (~200 km away) in Misamis Oriental where the raided compound sits. Even Chinese state media has reported the correct location, but hey ... why let well-documented facts stand in the way of good disinformation?

2️⃣. Even more obviously, the column claims the planned Davao depot will be able to store an absurdly implausible "41 trillion barrels of oil a day," which is more oil than has ever been produced ... [checks notes] ... IN HUMAN HISTORY.

The actual planned amount is 41 *million gallons* (~976 thousand barrels), not 41 *trillion barrels*. Put another way:

- Claim = 41,000,000,000,000 barrels 🤯
- Reality = 976,000 barrels 🥱

So the claim is only off by 40,999,999,024,000 barrels. But what's a few dozen-trillion barrels difference between friends? 🙄

3️⃣. Finally, the Embassy conveniently clipped out the identity of the *opinion* (not *news*) column's author: it's Mauro Gia Samonte, a self-described communist who holds an "Award for Promoting Philippines-China Understanding" co-organized by the Chinese Embassy itself. Mr. Ji might also have noted that Mr. Samonte's award citation (published on the Association for Philippines-China Understanding web site) reads: "TO DESTROY AMERICAN CREDIBILITY IS KEY TO CURING FILIPINO ILL WILL TOWARD CHINA."

You can't make this stuff up.

To summarize, the Embassy's top *official* spokesperson used the Embassy's *official* social media account to republish an obviously and demonstrably false allegation. He repeated it as if it were an ordinary news "article in The Manila Times", when it was actually an opinion column by an open & committed sympathizer whose identity they conveniently excluded.

Shameful.

-- Statement by SeaLight Foundation Executive Director Ray Powell

08/22/2026

🚨 🇨🇳 Patrolling East of Taiwan is ALARMING

SeaLight Executive Director Ray Powell, breaks down China’s "Boa Constrictor strategy" and how incrementalism, rather than sudden escalation, is changing the reality in the Indo-Pacific. From patrolling maritime borders near 🇯🇵 and the 🇵🇭 to challenging inbound shipping.

We are now seeing the slow and evolving reality of the quarantine of Taiwan

08/22/2026

"The Monster" -- 🇨🇳 Coast Guard 5901, the world's largest coast guard ship -- has been conducting an intrusive patrol inside 🇲🇾 & 🇧🇳 's exclusive economic zones since 30 July.

Though not technically a naval vessel, at over 12,000 tons CCG 5901's displacement is 3 times that of Malaysia's largest naval warship, and its armaments include a 76mm main gun and two 30mm cannons.

The China Coast Guard conducts continuous intrusive patrols to assert Beijing's sovereignty claims over its neighbors' lawful exclusive economic zones, in this case coming within 50 nautical miles of Malaysia's coastline.

08/22/2026

The 🇵🇭 appears to be conducting a resupply mission today for its outpost aboard the BRP Sierra Madre at 2nd Thomas Shoal, with the 's 44m BRP Malabrigo & 97m BRP Teresa Magbanua in support.

If so, this is the first known resupply mission since last month's bloody confrontation in which a Philippine sailor was injured by a 🇨🇳 Coast Guard sailor wielding a metal rod and had to be medically evacuated.

As usual, the 🇵🇭PCG support vessels are being closely shadowed by 🇨🇳CCG & maritime militia ships.

08/22/2026

Why Should We Care if China Just Fired a Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile into the South Pacific?

On July 6, a Chinese submarine fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile out of the South China Sea. It likely overflew parts of the Philippines before coming down in waters between Tuvalu, Nauru and Solomon Islands, inside the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone. The 14 Pacific Island countries in whose region it landed were almost entirely skipped in Beijing's notifications. A month later, when Pacific Islands Forum foreign ministers met in Fiji, two of its members held up the response text.

Kathryn Hendel Paik of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) joins SeaLight Executive Director Ray Powell and Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific? Host James Carouso to explain what Beijing was signaling, and why the Pacific Island Countries couldn't answer with one voice. Paik wrote the first-ever U.S. Pacific Partnership Strategy at the National Security Council, following 23 years in the Marine Corps as a helicopter pilot and as a military attaché in Indonesia.