The United States has in recent months repeatedly provoked China by violating disputed territorial waters around islands in the South China Sea.
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“We do not seek to make Russian Federation an enemy,”Carter said”.
“We’ve done them before all over the world”, Carter said of the freedom of navigation operation, “and we’ll do them again”.
The secretary also told the forum that the U.S.is taking a page out of the Reagan Cold War playbook by taking a “strong and balanced” approach to deter Moscow’s aggression in Syria and Ukraine and against the Baltics.
They include a new long-range bomber, lasers, new systems for electronic warfare and cyberspace, and “a few surprising ones” that Carter said he could not talk about at this time. He says the test will be in how China behaves, including its actions in the contested South China Sea, where the US has complained that China is militarizing artificial islands.
He said that as a rising power, it’s to be expected that China will have growing ambitions and a modernising military.
Carter was addressing key United States politicians and figures from the defense sector at the Reagan National Defense Forum, hosted by the Reagan library in Simi Valley.
He said he chose to talk about Russian Federation at the Reagan library as the Cold War was a defining theme of the late U.S. leader’s presidency.
“The United States has long had a lot of key alliances and partnerships out here”.
“The United States joins virtually everyone else in the region in being deeply concerned about the pace and scope of land reclamation in the South China Sea”, Carter continued, emphasizing China’s regional isolation on the issue of the South China Sea.
Carter remained committed to more sea patrols in the South China Sea to even further demonstrate freedom of navigation, according to Reuters. The Obama administration has been reluctant to speak publicly on the specifics of the mission carried out in the Spratly Islands by the USS Lassen, the guided-missile destroyer that transited within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef compliant with the global legal requirements for “innocent passage”.
There, China is using dredgers to turn reefs and low-lying features into larger land masses for runways and other military uses to bolster its claims of sovereignty in the region.
U.S.-China relations will be complex as the nations continue to balance their competition and cooperation, Carter said, noting that both nations have agreed to four confidence-building agreements, including one meant to prevent unsafe air-to-air encounters.
Carter said he’s accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit China in the New Year.
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Meanwhile, the defense department works to leverage innovative strategies and operational concepts in response to Russia’s provocations and the impact of China’s rise, Carter said.
