The Malaysian defense meetings come during a visit to China by U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Harry Harris.
Advertisement
Freedom of navigation and flight should be guaranteed in the disputed South China Sea, South Korea’s Defense Minister Han Min-koo said in a regional security forum held on Wednesday in Malaysia where defense chiefs from the us and China and Asian countries gathered together.
America’s Defence Secretary toured the USS Theodore Roosevelt – nicknamed “The Big Stick” – with Malaysia’s Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, and blamed China for rising tension in the region.
“The reason is because the Chinese lobbied to keep any reference to the South China Sea out of the final joint declaration”, the official said, on condition of anonymity.
Hishammuddin spoke with Chinese National Defense Minister Chang Wanquan shortly before departing to meet Carter at the Roosevelt.
Recently China has been vigorously staking the issue’s claims in the resource-rich South China Sea by recovering facilities and property and building airstrips on reefs that are contested, angering neighbours who’ve claims that are overlapping.
While Japan is offering verbal support for the actions of its only treaty ally, officials have been cagey about what role the officially pacifist nation’s maritime forces could play in the South China Sea.
But both China and the United States pointed the finger at each other.
Carter told Chang in a meeting late Tuesday that the United States would continue to sail its vessels in waters that China claims.
“I had no expectation there would be agreement”, Carter said at a news conference, adding that the important point was that the South China Sea was a “persistent topic” of the conference.
The meeting happened amid increasing tensions in the South China Sea, after a USA warship sailed within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) – the extent of territorial waters – of the Spratly Islands.
Aside from China, a number of other countries have claims in the South China Sea where over $5 trillion in global trade passes through each year.
India wants a “code of conduct” for every nation to follow while passing through the disputed South China Sea that remains the most controversial geographical space in the Indian Ocean because of China’s territorial claims.
Advertisement
Responding to a question about a statement on the Chinese Defence Ministry’s blog that blamed countries outside the region for the failure to reach a consensus, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said that the Joint Declaration was something decided by ASEAN members. In May, Beijing called a U.S. P-8 surveillance flight carrying a CNN team over the South China Sea “irresponsible and unsafe”. China denies it’s impeding freedom of navigation or overflight in the waterway.
