Registered non-profit lighting up the maritime gray zone. Transparency & monitoring in the Indo-Pacific & beyond. Founder/Director: @gordianknotray
United States
- Tweets 860
- Following 123
- Followers 2,667
- Likes 523
SeaLight retweeted
New: Why Should We Care if the Illicit Iran-China Oil Trade Goes Through Malaysia?
Roughly $4 billion a month. That is what Iran’s sanctioned oil trade with China was worth when it ran normally, according to Charlie Brown @supbrow, and the revenue goes directly to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Brown, a former U.S. Navy officer who heads the Iran Tanker Tracking Program at United Against a Nuclear Iran, joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim Carouso from Singapore to explain how Iranian crude reaches China’s teapot refineries by way of an anchorage 80 nautical miles from Singapore, often relabeled “Malaysian blended crude.”
He calls Malaysia’s Eastern Outer Port Limits “parking on the side of a superhighway.” The location is within Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), shallow enough to anchor and close enough to Singapore for resupply. Ships go there, he says, “precisely because they won’t be disrupted.” None anchor in Indonesian waters, where Jakarta’s enforcement is stronger across its full maritime zone, having once seized the Iranian-flagged Arman 114.
Malaysian fines run just five figures against cargoes worth $100 million, which Charlie calls a slap on the wrist. This past January, Malaysian authorities detained two false-flagged tankers conducting a transfer off Penang, then released them with a minimal fine, which changed nothing at the Johor anchorage. Malaysia updated its EEZ Act in June 2026 to cover illegal anchoring and unpermitted cargo transfers across its maritime zone, but Brown says nothing has really changed.
Also in this episode: what the U.S. blockade has and has not stopped, why 26 Iranian-flagged tankers sailed within days of the MoU signing, and Brown’s argument that roughly a third of these ships are now stateless and can be seized by any nation on the high seas.
Links to Episode 168 below.
4
7
14
1,909
SeaLight retweeted
Why is China SINGLING OUT the Philippines?
Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro joins @GordianKnotRay and Jim for a sit down interview.
He explains the importance of the Philippines' geographic location and why Manila serves as the longest natural block between the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, making it geographically unique amongst ASEAN member states.
18
53
183
6,300
SeaLight retweeted
Thanks 🇨🇳@globaltimesnews for this utterly shameless gaslighting. 🔥
In another clear violation of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the #SouthChinaSea, #China has again used force to disrupt a peaceful resupply mission to an outpost the 🇵🇭#Philippines has continuously maintained since 1999.
The DOC explicitly requires self-restraint, respect for freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of disputes without the threat or use of force.
Not content simply to ignore those obligations, Beijing absurdly accuses Manila being the DOC violator by … er … well, they are not really clear on exactly that's supposed to work. 🙄
What they are clear about was that the resupply took place "on a Chinese holiday".
Because, y'know, transporting supplies in a wooden boat during Mid-Autumn Festival a shocking provocation. Or something.
Well, as the saying goes, "If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell."
Still wonder why there is no meaningful progress on an enforceable South China Sea Code of Conduct after more than 2 decades of interminable Kabuki-theater talks? 🎭
The reason is simple: Beijing is a bad-faith negotiator and a serial violator of its own agreements. Moreover, as we learned a decade ago from its outright rejection of an entirely legal and proper arbitration proceeding brought under UNCLOS (to which it is also a signatory), Beijing will never accept any enforcement mechanism it cannot control.
27
90
1,463
🚨Why is 🇨🇳#China SINGLING OUT the 🇵🇭#Philippines?
Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro explains the importance of the Philippines' geographic location and why Manila serves as the longest natural block between the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, making it geographically unique among ASEAN member states.
3
14
29
1,809
DON'T THINK THAT IT WON'T HAPPEN TO YOU
Philippine Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro joins SeaLight Executive Director @GordianKnotRay and the @IndoPacPodcast for a sit-down interview.
In this clip, he is asked what lessons the 🇵🇭#Philippines has learned from the Ukraine conflict. Secretary Teodoro highlights five key takeaways: 1. Capacity; 2. Resilience; 3. Reserves; and 4. Infrastructure.
Lastly, he emphasizes the most fundamental lesson learned from Ukraine: "Don't think it won't happen to you." A country must prepare to defend itself and be able to respond to any and all scenarios to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
10
29
874
🇨🇳#China's active attempt to create a Sinocentric World
🇵🇭Philippine Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro joins SeaLight Executive Director @GordianKnotRay on @IndoPacPodcast for a sit-down interview.
Secretary Teodoro explains China's active attempt to create a Sinocentric world and suppress those that disagree with it. He highlights how China coerces smaller nations, citing Palau as an example of Beijing's diplomatic pressure. These actions by Beijing aim to pressure smaller countries into submitting to its Sinocentric vision of global dominance.
4
24
55
1,702
Daily Standard: Powell connects volatile West Philippine Sea dots
In 2023, Powell officially launched SeaLight, a nonprofit initiative that closely tracks Chinese activities and gray-zone tactics in the West Philippine Sea and the broader #SouthChinaSea.
tribune.net.ph/2026/09/20/po…
1
11
675
SeaLight retweeted
This summer @SeaLightFound welcomed its first interns. One of them, Grace Gabrielli, did such outstanding data analysis & visualization work that it was picked up by the @BBC's Vietnamese service for publication! 🙌
📢 NEW REPORT: SeaLight teams up with @bbcvietnamese (Vietnamese) on illegal 🇨🇳#PRC fishing fleets off 🇻🇳#Vietnam's central coast.
Roughly 100 Chinese fishing vessels have operated inside Vietnam's exclusive economic zone off Quảng Ngãi since 2024, at times within 28 nautical miles (about 52 km) of Lý Sơn Island.
@BBC Tiếng Việt reports on SeaLight tracking data covering 2024 through 2026. The fleet, mostly out of Guangxi ports, masses from March, begins withdrawing in late April ahead of Beijing's unilateral May 1 fishing moratorium, and returns after the ban lifts on August 16.
Activity ran dense from late 2025 into early 2026. On some days in 2026 the count in the area passed 40 vessels, and the level has climbed steadily over about four years, peaking in May 2026.
Most of the vessels log fishing activity, but a PRC government ship classified as military recorded none at all while tracking the fleet's seasonal calendar. SeaLight Director @GordianKnotRay said the presence of an identifiable state ship means the fishing is permitted, monitored and protected if Vietnam moves to stop it.
Carlyle Thayer cautions that photographic evidence is lacking and that the wider fleet is likely a mix of commercial crews, subsidized militia and law enforcement.
Quảng Ngãi had close to 5,000 registered fishing boats as of May 2026, according to Vietnam News Agency. Squeezed out of traditional grounds, crews report working the Gulf of Tonkin instead, and Thayer says some now range as far as the waters around Indonesia's Natuna Islands.
Fishers have told reporters that calls for help go unanswered and that patrols are thin to absent while they are at sea. On September 29, 2024, QNg 95739 TS was attacked off the Paracel Islands; nets, machinery and several tons of fish were taken and at least 10 fishers were injured.
Hanoi rarely releases imagery of these encounters, so the public record comes mostly from spokesperson statements or foreign reporting. BBC asked Vietnam's foreign ministry and the Vietnam Fisheries Society for comment and had no immediate response from either.
In 2023 SeaLight tracked a Chinese survey ship off southern Vietnam sailing a track that drew the character 中, the "Trung" in "Trung Quốc" (China) repeating it for a month with coast guard and militia vessels in company.
As Powell put it to the BBC, China never claims less, only more.
Link to full article in the comments 👇
2
6
31
2,088
🚨Why Should We Care About the 📷#Philippines Defense Secretary Who Won’t Back Down from 📷? Onstage at the Seoul Defense Dialogue, Philippine Secretary of National Defense
@giboteodoro
was taking a question about Chinese coercion in the South China Sea when a forum staffer handed him a note, handwritten on hotel stationery, from China’s delegation. He decided to read it out loud, dismantling it line by line, and then said he would keep it as “a memento of how desperate China is.”
That clip rocketed around the world.
Watch the full interview below.
1
4
11
880
SeaLight retweeted
Hàng trăm tàu cá Trung Quốc hoạt động ngoài khơi Quảng Ngãi: Bắc Kinh muốn gì? (Hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels operate off the coast of Quang Ngai: What does Beijing want?)
bbc.com/vietnamese/articles/…
1
6
8
1,146
SeaLight retweeted
📢 NEW REPORT: SeaLight teams up with @bbcvietnamese (Vietnamese) on illegal 🇨🇳#PRC fishing fleets off 🇻🇳#Vietnam's central coast.
Roughly 100 Chinese fishing vessels have operated inside Vietnam's exclusive economic zone off Quảng Ngãi since 2024, at times within 28 nautical miles (about 52 km) of Lý Sơn Island.
@BBC Tiếng Việt reports on SeaLight tracking data covering 2024 through 2026. The fleet, mostly out of Guangxi ports, masses from March, begins withdrawing in late April ahead of Beijing's unilateral May 1 fishing moratorium, and returns after the ban lifts on August 16.
Activity ran dense from late 2025 into early 2026. On some days in 2026 the count in the area passed 40 vessels, and the level has climbed steadily over about four years, peaking in May 2026.
Most of the vessels log fishing activity, but a PRC government ship classified as military recorded none at all while tracking the fleet's seasonal calendar. SeaLight Director @GordianKnotRay said the presence of an identifiable state ship means the fishing is permitted, monitored and protected if Vietnam moves to stop it.
Carlyle Thayer cautions that photographic evidence is lacking and that the wider fleet is likely a mix of commercial crews, subsidized militia and law enforcement.
Quảng Ngãi had close to 5,000 registered fishing boats as of May 2026, according to Vietnam News Agency. Squeezed out of traditional grounds, crews report working the Gulf of Tonkin instead, and Thayer says some now range as far as the waters around Indonesia's Natuna Islands.
Fishers have told reporters that calls for help go unanswered and that patrols are thin to absent while they are at sea. On September 29, 2024, QNg 95739 TS was attacked off the Paracel Islands; nets, machinery and several tons of fish were taken and at least 10 fishers were injured.
Hanoi rarely releases imagery of these encounters, so the public record comes mostly from spokesperson statements or foreign reporting. BBC asked Vietnam's foreign ministry and the Vietnam Fisheries Society for comment and had no immediate response from either.
In 2023 SeaLight tracked a Chinese survey ship off southern Vietnam sailing a track that drew the character 中, the "Trung" in "Trung Quốc" (China) repeating it for a month with coast guard and militia vessels in company.
As Powell put it to the BBC, China never claims less, only more.
Link to full article in the comments 👇
6
24
56
9,004
📢 NEW REPORT: SeaLight teams up with @bbcvietnamese (Vietnamese) on illegal 🇨🇳#PRC fishing fleets off 🇻🇳#Vietnam's central coast.
Roughly 100 Chinese fishing vessels have operated inside Vietnam's exclusive economic zone off Quảng Ngãi since 2024, at times within 28 nautical miles (about 52 km) of Lý Sơn Island.
@BBC Tiếng Việt reports on SeaLight tracking data covering 2024 through 2026. The fleet, mostly out of Guangxi ports, masses from March, begins withdrawing in late April ahead of Beijing's unilateral May 1 fishing moratorium, and returns after the ban lifts on August 16.
Activity ran dense from late 2025 into early 2026. On some days in 2026 the count in the area passed 40 vessels, and the level has climbed steadily over about four years, peaking in May 2026.
Most of the vessels log fishing activity, but a PRC government ship classified as military recorded none at all while tracking the fleet's seasonal calendar. SeaLight Director @GordianKnotRay said the presence of an identifiable state ship means the fishing is permitted, monitored and protected if Vietnam moves to stop it.
Carlyle Thayer cautions that photographic evidence is lacking and that the wider fleet is likely a mix of commercial crews, subsidized militia and law enforcement.
Quảng Ngãi had close to 5,000 registered fishing boats as of May 2026, according to Vietnam News Agency. Squeezed out of traditional grounds, crews report working the Gulf of Tonkin instead, and Thayer says some now range as far as the waters around Indonesia's Natuna Islands.
Fishers have told reporters that calls for help go unanswered and that patrols are thin to absent while they are at sea. On September 29, 2024, QNg 95739 TS was attacked off the Paracel Islands; nets, machinery and several tons of fish were taken and at least 10 fishers were injured.
Hanoi rarely releases imagery of these encounters, so the public record comes mostly from spokesperson statements or foreign reporting. BBC asked Vietnam's foreign ministry and the Vietnam Fisheries Society for comment and had no immediate response from either.
In 2023 SeaLight tracked a Chinese survey ship off southern Vietnam sailing a track that drew the character 中, the "Trung" in "Trung Quốc" (China) repeating it for a month with coast guard and militia vessels in company.
As Powell put it to the BBC, China never claims less, only more.
Link to full article in the comments 👇
6
24
56
9,004
Hàng trăm tàu cá Trung Quốc hoạt động ngoài khơi Quảng Ngãi: Bắc Kinh muốn gì? (Hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels operate off the coast of Quang Ngai: What does Beijing want?)
bbc.com/vietnamese/articles/…
1
6
8
1,146
SeaLight retweeted
🇨🇳🇵🇭 The note read around the world 🌏
This week on @IndoPacPodcast 👇
Ep. 167 is available wherever you get your podcasts, including:
- YouTube: piped.video/owDFvzvspqQ
- Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
- Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0RF…
- Amazon: music.amazon.com/podcasts/9e…
- RSS: rss.com/podcasts/indo-pacifi…
+ More!
Sponsored by @BowerGroupAsia
2
25
94
2,603
SeaLight retweeted
The amazing part is that this video was originally released by 🇨🇳#China as "proof" that the 🇵🇭#Philippines was to blame ... like the abuser in a relationship: "If you wouldn't make me so mad I wouldn't have to keep hitting you."
New video shows a China Coast Guard cutter ramming a Philippine BFAR fishing-support boat north of Abad Santos Shoal (100km from the Philippines) earlier today
The attack took place in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Chinese land is 850 km away
40
99
407
23,297
🚨How did the 🇵🇭#Philippines' Defense Secretary handle the note China gave to him?
SeaLight Executive Director @GordianKnotRay Powell interviewed the Philippines National Defense Secretary, @giboteodoro, for the @IndoPacPodcast.
Ray narrates how the incident happened. Onstage at the Seoul Defense Dialogue, the Philippine Secretary of National Defense was answering a question about Chinese coercion in the South China Sea when a forum staffer handed him a note, handwritten on hotel stationery, from China’s delegation.
Watch the full interview below.
2
14
28
693