China is putting ever greater pressure on the Philippines to cede its sovereign rights in the South China Sea, Manila's Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said on Tuesday after meeting his Australian counterpart in Canberra.

BEIJING (AP) — China has published baselines for a contested shoal in the South China Sea it had seized from the Philippines, a move that’s likely to increase tensions over overlapping territorial claims.

The Philippines has protested China’s baselines around the disputed Scarborough Shoal, as tensions between the two nations build up anew over their competing claims in the South China Sea.