State Department official Colin Willett says the US will not hesitate to defend its security interests and honor commitments to Asia-Pacific allies.
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China on Friday dismissed the United States plea to accept any decision in the South China Sea arbitration to be announced next week.
Asean’s response on this issue will be highly anticipated, especially after the debacle at a Special Asean-China Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Kunming last month when the group first issued and then hastily retracted a strongly worded statement articulating its position on rising tensions in the South China Sea, as several member states came under pressure from Beijing.
Ethiopia News Agency said in a recent report.
The United States and China share common interests in keeping the peace and stability in the South China Sea and the United States supports countries in the region to make continuous efforts to peacefully resolve disputes through diplomatic means, Kerry added.
“China, like 30 other countries, made a declaration in 2006, that China will not take part in third-party arbitration when it comes to maritime delimitation”, he said.
It is not clear how many patrols the U.S. Navy conducted around Chinese man-made islands and the U.S. Pacific Fleet has refused to reveal additional details, citing operational security.
Ban said cooperation between China and the United Nations is getting stronger every year.
Congressman Matt Salmon, Chairman of the subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, said the Obama Administration and other counterparts across the world recognise the severity of the threat posed by China’s aggressive, coercive actions in the South China Sea that undermine global norms.
“That is very much in the view for China to be well placed to respond in the way it might want to following the ruling”, defence and strategic expert from the Australian National University, Dr John Blaxland told AAP. “So my recommendation for the Chinese government is to give the current government a chance to explore innovative ways on how to deal with China bilaterally”.
Territorial claims are normally the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but the ICJ only entertains cases if all parties in the dispute participate.
China has repeatedly said it does not consider any decision reached by the arbitration court to be legally binding. During the said call, Reuters reports that China hopes the US will honor its promise that it will not take sides when it comes to the South China Sea dispute. “China is a peace-loving country and deals with foreign relations with discretion, but it won’t flinch if the USA and its small clique keep encroaching on its interests on its doorstep”, state-run Global Times said in an editorial today.
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Anyway, moving on to more current events, the grandpa recalls: “China got them [the islands] back after the Second World War and they were recognized as China’s on maps”.
