His remarks came after the United States sent military ships and warplanes close to Chinese islands in recent weeks to assert its “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea.
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“In the meantime, China is strongly against any country using the excuse of navigation and overflight freedom to engage in activities threatening the sovereignty and security of other nations, and facilitating regional militarization”, said Hong.
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea while the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims especially on the Spratly island group confirmed by experts to be rich not only in fisheries but also in mineral resources like petroleum and natural gas.
Wading into the fray, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for the South China Sea not to be militarialized, though he did not directly name Beijing, the Tokyo-based news agency Kyodo reported.
It was the third visit first to China by a USA navy vessel this year and the first since a similar guided missile destroyer, the USS Lassen, angered Beijing by sailing near one of China’s man-made islands late last month to challenge the 12-nautical-mile territorial limits China claims around the artificial islands.
“One should never link such military facilities with efforts to militarize the islands and reefs and militarize the South China Sea,” Liu said.
Obama said he commended ASEAN for working to create a code of conduct for the South China Sea.
With Obama present, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told Sunday’s closed-door summit that countries “from outside the region” should stop inflaming tensions over the maritime dispute, a Chinese official said afterward.
The tensions in the region have continued to worsen as China unabatedly constructed artificial islands on the reefs in the contested sea, part of which is part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
The UN was gathering ideas and experience from member states.
Medvedev said “it is now clear we can only fight this threat by bringing our forces together and by working through such global institutions as the United Nations”.
“Only by expanding our common interests and seeking common ground can we narrow our differences”, he said, adding that China will allocate infrastructure loans totaling United States dollars 10 billion to the Southeast Asian countries.
The summit’s host, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, urged his counterparts to step up efforts to realise a vision that many experts view as hard, if not impossible, to achieve. “Now we have to assure freer movements and removal of barriers that hinder growth and investment”.
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Manila insists the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the Philippines and China have both ratified, should be used to settle the bitter row.
