China damaging its international standing, says US envoy

In this May 7, 2012 file photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, CNOOC 981, the first deep-water drilling rig developed in China, is pictured at 320 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Hong Kong in the South China Sea. AP

WASHINGTON—China’s coercive efforts to enforce its territorial claims in disputed waters are not just raising tensions but damaging its international standing, a senior US official said Wednesday.

Top diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Russel, was speaking at a congressional hearing, two weeks ahead of high-level talks in Beijing, where he said Washington would seek to build “strategic trust” with China and economic cooperation, but would also push for the release of political prisoners.

Russel criticized China’s recent actions in the East and South China Seas which he said had left its neighbors “understandably alarmed.”

China is locked in a standoff with Vietnam after deploying oil rigs in waters claimed by the two nations, and has running territorial disputes with US treaty allies, the Philippines and Japan, that have increased fears of a military skirmish that could rock the region’s fast-growing economies.

“A pattern of unilateral Chinese actions in sensitive and disputed areas is raising tensions and damaging China’s international standing,” Russel said in his prepared testimony to the Senate foreign relations committee.

“China, as a strong and rising power, should hold itself to a high standard of behavior. To willfully disregard diplomatic and other peaceful ways of dealing with disagreements and disputes in favor of economic or physical coercion is destabilizing and dangerous,” he said.

China says its expansive territorial claims have a historical basis and denies acting provocatively, and it looks dimly on Washington speaking out on the issue. While the US is not a claimant itself, it says it has a national interest in maintaining open navigation and trade through those waters.

US-China relations have also been strained by US accusations of cyberespionage, and Russel said the US would raise its concerns over the theft of intellectual property and trade secrets at next month’s Strategic and Economic Dialogue to be attended by Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew.

Washington upped the ante last month when it charged five Chinese military officials with hacking into US companies to steal trade secrets—accusations that Beijing rejects.