Philippine defence minister Gilberto Teodoro said he would discuss China's attempts to change the international order during a bilateral meeting with his Japanese counterpart in Manila on Monday. (Reporting by Mikhail Flores;

Officials say more than 400 people, half of them from China, were arrested by Philippine authorities in a raid on a suspected online gambling and scam hub in a busy commercial district in Manila

Disputed South China Sea airspace that Beijing claims as its own falls within Manila’s Exclusive Economic Zone, where the Philippines and other countries enjoy freedom of overflight.

France, Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand—following Washington’s lead—have each staged war games or concluded alliances with Manila targeting China.

Japan and the Philippines agreed on Monday to further deepen defence ties in the face of an "increasingly severe" security environment in the Indo-Pacific region, Japanese defence minister Gen Nakatani said on Monday.

Both Tokyo and Manila are longtime allies of the United States, which has been strengthening an arc of alliances to deter China's claims in the Pacific.

Manila is shoring up military partnerships with other nations as it seeks to counter Beijing in a South China Sea dispute.

The incident marks the second confrontation this week between Manila and Beijing over disputed South China Sea islands.

The Philippine defense secretary says his country and its allies would take measures to counter any attempt by China to impose an air defense zone or restrict freedom of flights over the South China S

The Philippines' top diplomat to the United States expressed confidence Monday that President Donald Trump's new administration would continue military patrols in the disputed South China Sea and move ahead with an agreed expansion of the U.

The Philippine defense secretary said his country and its allies would take measures to counter any attempt by China to impose an air defense zone or restrict freedom of flights over the South China Sea.

Philippines officials accused a Chinese government-owned broadcaster of spreading misleading information and propaganda following its claim that a Philippine vessel was intentionally polluting the waters of the South China Sea,