Carter and his Malaysian counterpart will be on the USS Theodore Roosevelt as it sails through the South China Sea.
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“What we sign on the joint declaration is not going to resolve the issue of duplicating claims nor is it going to wish vessels that are in the South China Sea away”, Hishammuddin said, The Associated Press reported.
The United States, he said, will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever global law permits. The Chinese government has asserted that most of the sea is sovereign Chinese territory and has built a series of artificial islands and military facilities on reefs near the Spratly Island chain. His visit coincides with that of Chinese President Xi Jinping to one of the countries in the web of overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The official would not specify where the USS Theodore Roosevelt would be sailing at the time, but said the enormous nuclear-powered supercarrier is conducting a “routine transit” of the South China Sea.
It came just a week after a USA warship challenged territorial limits around one of China’s man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago, which is claimed by Vietnam, with a so-called freedom-of-navigation patrol.
The United States official said “a number of ASEAN countries felt that (it) was inappropriate” to exclude mention of the islands impasse from an official statement.
Beijing has criticised Washington’s “freedom of navigation” patrols, warning that a minor incident could spark war if the USA does not stop its “provocative acts”.
Chang said the South China Sea issue concerns China’s core interests.
“But specific other states disregarded this existing common understanding, trying to drive and add content unrelated to the summit’s talk to the joint declaration, fully wandering in the Asean defence assembly mechanics’s objectives and principles”, it said.
In their bilateral meeting, Chang told Nakatani that Japan should not make any moves that would complicate the matter, saying the South China Sea situation was “not an issue between China and Japan”, according to China’s Ministry of National Defense.
Carter also signaled that the US will keep a strong naval presence in the region in support of nations seeking to preserve stability.
The official also said it was necessary for Malaysia to “balance it out” and Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein already has a plan.
The aircraft carrier, Carter said, is a symbol of the United States’ commitment to the rebalance and the importance of the Asia-Pacific region. We have navigated throughout the seas up to the Antarctic.
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Beijing insists it has sovereign rights to almost all of the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which about a third of all the world’s traded oil passes and whose seabed contains coveted energy and mineral deposits.
