Xi was attending an opening ceremony of a China-US high-level dialogue.
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In 2013, China implemented an identification zone over the East China Sea, requiring all aircraft passing through the area to declare their route and has recently said that the country was ready to install its planned air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, citing the United States provocative activities in the disputed area.
“We’re challenging excessive maritime claims around the world, and advocating for that rules-based order, particularly in the global commons”, he said.
“The South China Sea issue has become overheated because of the provocations of certain countries for their own selfish interests”, Chinese Admiral Sun Jianguo said at the meeting. China’s claimed sovereignty stretches hundreds of kilometres to the south and east of its most southerly province of Hainan, covering hundreds of disputed islands and reefs.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam have competing claims to China, and object to its island-building. The Philippines has brought a case at an global tribunal at The Hague contesting China’s claims in the area.
China on Sunday denounced U.S. “provocations” in the South China Sea and said it does not fear “trouble” over its territorial disputes with neighbors in the area.
Beijing has indicated that it could soon set up such a zone, in which aircraft are supposed to identify themselves to Chinese authorities as they fly through.
Speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue on Asian security in Singapore on Saturday, US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter said a Chinese attempt to construct facilities on the Scarborough Shoal, part of the disputed Spratly Islands located within the Philippines exclusive economic zone, would prompt unspecified “actions” by the US and other nations.
“China and ASEAN are capable of stabilizing the region”, he said. “China will continue to firmly insist on resolving relevant disputes with the Philippines on the South China Sea by negotiations”.
While calling for diplomatic and legal solutions to the territorial disputes, Carter warned the U.S. will continue to “fly, sail, and operate wherever worldwide law allows”.
China has taken issue with the US’s role in South China Sea disputes and criticized the Philippines for getting the United Nations arbitration court involved. Experts say that Duterte’s friendly gesture has created an opening to revive dialogue with China.
Carter replied, “China is doing by far and away more of this kind of reclamation and militarization than any other party”.
An airstrip there would add to China’s network of runways and surveillance sites that US Pacific Command chief Harry Harris said previous year would create “a mechanism by which China would have de facto control over the South China Sea in any scenario short of war”.
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Feng also said that if he had been the defense minister 10 years ago, he would have built up Taiping Island even more than it is today.
