US to China: Stop it now
Freedom of navigation
While the United States is not a claimant, it says it has a national interest in a peaceful resolution of the territorial disputes and freedom of navigation.
Last June, the United States called for a freeze on construction work in disputed areas, but Beijing only increased its land reclamation.
In recent months, commercial satellite imagery has put a spotlight on the rapid expansion of artificial islands, mostly in the Spratlys.
In its annual report on China’s military power earlier this month, the Pentagon warned that five emerging outposts could be used for surveillance systems, harbors, an airfield and logistical support.
Last week the Chinese military ordered a US Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft to leave an area above the heavily disputed Spratly islands. But the American plane ignored the demand.
‘US will not be deterred’
“There should be no mistake: the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as US forces do all around the world,” Carter said in Singapore on Saturday.
“America, alongside its allies and partners in the regional architecture, will not be deterred from exercising these rights—the rights of all nations. After all, turning an underwater rock into an airfield simply does not afford the rights of sovereignty or permit restrictions on international air or maritime transit,” he said.
During a question and answer session after Carter’s speech, a Chinese military official said the criticism was “groundless and not constructive.”
“Freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is not at all an issue because the freedom has never been affected,” said Senior Col. Zhao Xiaozhuo from China’s Academy of Military Science.
Chinese delegation head Admiral Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of the general staff department at the People’s Liberation Army, was scheduled to address the forum on Sunday.
Sun and Carter spoke cordially on the sidelines before a luncheon at the forum, an AFP photographer said.
“Freedom of navigation should be for the benefits of economic development, rather than sending military aircraft and vessels everywhere,” Rear Adm. Guan Youfei, director of the Foreign Affairs Office of China’s Ministry of National Defense, said in response to Carter’s comments, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.
Code of conduct
Beijing has defended its dredging work in the contested waters and accused Washington of singling out China over an activity that other countries in the region are also engaged in.
China insists it has sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, a major global shipping route believed to be home to a wealth of oil and gas reserves.
In his speech, Carter urged China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to adopt a “code of conduct” in the disputed waters this year.
The code is expected to build on a nonbinding 2002 pledge by countries with competing claims to respect freedom of navigation, resolve disputes peacefully and refrain from inflaming the situation.
Carter said Washington would “support the right of claimants to pursue international legal arbitration and other peaceful means to resolve these disputes.
The Philippines infuriated China when it filed a formal complaint to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in March 2014.
China has so far refused to recognize the process.
Originally posted: 12:52 PM | Saturday, May 30th, 2015
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