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SINGAPORE – Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said today that Beijing’s expansive claims in the South China Sea have “no basis in international law”, taking aim at China’s growing assertiveness in the hotly contested waters.
“That assertion treads on the sovereignty of the states in the region,” he said at the start of a trip to Southeast Asia, where several countries have competing claims with China in the sea.
“We continue to support the region’s coastal states in upholding their rights under international law.”
Speaking in Singapore, he said the US “will not flinch when our interests are threatened, yet we do not seek confrontation” with China.
“I am committed to pursuing a constructive, stable relationship with China, including stronger crisis communications with the People’s Liberation Army.”
China claims almost the entire resource-rich sea, through which trillions of US dollars in shipping trade passes annually, with overlapping claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Beijing has been accused of deploying a range of military hardware including anti-ship missiles and surface-to-air missiles there, and ignored a 2016 international tribunal decision that declared its historical claim over most of the waters to be without basis.
Tensions have escalated in recent months between Beijing and rival claimants.
Manila was angered after hundreds of Chinese boats were spotted inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, while Malaysia scrambled fighter jets to intercept Chinese military aircraft that appeared off its coast.
The US-China relationship has deteriorated over a range of issues from cybersecurity and tech supremacy to human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Biden has largely kept the hawkish stance on China of Donald Trump, describing the Asian power as the pre-eminent challenge to the United States, but has lowered the temperature and instead emphasised working with allies and working at home to compete better.
After Singapore, Austin will visit Vietnam and the Philippines, and will seek to underline that the US is a “stabilising force” in Southeast Asia, said a senior defence official. – AFP, July 27, 2021
