Kerry Expected to Bring Up China’s Sea Claims During Visit

Kerry Expected to Bring Up China’s Sea Claims During Visit

BEIJING — Secretary of State John Kerry arrives here on Saturday amid rising tensions over China’s expansion of shoals and islets in areas of the South China Sea claimed by at least three countries.

A senior Pentagon official said this week that the United States might consider sending ships and aircraft to within 12 nautical miles of built-up reefs near the Philippines, an American ally, to demonstrate its commitment to freedom of navigation in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

“We are actively assessing the military implications of land reclamation and are committed to taking effective and appropriate action,” David Shear, an assistant secretary of defense, said at a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

State Department officials said Mr. Kerry would arrive in Beijing with a similarly tough message: China’s intensified island-building campaign threatens relations as both countries are seeking to cooperate on several issues, including military ties, bilateral investment and climate change.

In a background briefing on Wednesday, a senior State Department official said Mr. Kerry would leave Chinese leaders with “absolutely no doubt” where the United States stood on the issue of China’s territorial claims.

“He is going to reinforce to them the very negative consequences on China’s image, on China’s relationship with its neighbors, on regional stability, and potentially on the U.S.-China relationship,” the official said.

Beijing, under President Xi Jinping’s more muscular approach to diplomacy, has shown no signs of backing down. Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the United States, accused Washington of unnecessarily stirring up trouble.

“Just who is creating tensions in the South China Sea?” the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Mr. Cui as saying on Wednesday. “In the past few years, the U.S. has intervened in such a high-profile way. Does it stabilize the situation or further mess it up? The facts are out there.”

Global Times, a reliably nationalist newspaper in China, suggested that China would match any American show of force in the Spratlys, the island chain off the Philippines that has been the focus of frenetic dredging work by China in recent months.

“If U.S. warplanes fly over China’s islands, and if its warships enter the waters 12 nautical miles from China’s islands, then we believe the Chinese military would prove that America’s pirate-style actions picked the wrong place and wrong people,” the newspaper said in an editorial on Friday.

The rancor over the South China Sea is mounting at a difficult time for United States-China relations, which are troubled by continuing clashes over cybersecurity, currency policy and human rights. On Friday, Chinese prosecutors said Pu Zhiqiang, one of China’s best-known human rights lawyers, would stand trial on charges of inciting ethnic hatred.

The police detained Mr. Pu just over a year ago, making him one of the most prominent targets of the Communist Party’s vigorous assault on dissent. The State Department, drawing the ire of Chinese officials, recently called for his release.

But there are bright spots in the relationship. President Obama and Mr. Xi have a good working relationship; a meeting between the two in Beijing in November produced a landmark agreement on carbon emissions and a military accord that seeks to avoid clashes between American and Chinese aircraft in the seas off China.

In addition to laying the groundwork for a planned visit by Mr. Xi to Washington in September, Mr. Kerry and his Chinese counterparts are expected to discuss plans for the United States-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, an annual gathering of hundreds of officials that Washington will host next month.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said threats from Washington were unlikely to persuade the government to halt its land reclamation efforts in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

“For Xi Jinping, this is a must-complete project,” he said. “I don’t see either side backing down from the standoff, and the conflict could get worse even though both sides are eager to stabilize ties.”

China Stands by Its Claims Over South China Sea Reefs

Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Beijing on Saturday. Credit Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

BEIJING — China’s top diplomat, emerging from talks here with Secretary of State John Kerry, suggested Saturday that Beijing had no intention of scaling back island-building efforts in the South China Sea that have aggravated tensions in waters claimed by a number of neighboring governments.

At a news conference, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Chinese claims over a collection of uninhabited reefs off the coast of the Philippines were “unshakable,” suggesting that Mr. Kerry’s message that China help reduce tensions in the region had fallen on deaf ears.

“The determination of the Chinese side to safeguard our own sovereignty and territorial integrity is as firm as a rock,” Mr. Wang said.

Mr. Kerry, on his fifth visit to China as secretary of state, is ostensibly here to discuss plans for a White House summit meeting between President Obama and President Xi Jinping, and an annual gathering of Chinese and American officials that is scheduled to take place next month in Washington.

During their talks Saturday morning, the two men said they had covered a range of issues that both sides have cooperated on in the past: climate change, Iran’s nuclear program and improved military relations between Washington and Beijing.

“There is no question but that our nations share extraordinary opportunities that are looking at us as we build the history of this century,” Mr. Kerry said. “We have a lot to accomplish together in the coming years.”

But China’s ramped-up dredging efforts in the South China Sea, which began after Mr. Xi took power three years ago, have become an increasingly nettlesome issue for Washington. Although the United States does not have a position on the overlapping territorial claims by China and five other governments, it says it is committed to freedom of navigation in the area, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The most recent surge of land reclamation in the atolls and outcroppings known as the Spratlys is 1,000 miles from China’s southernmost point, Hainan Island, but just off the coast of the Philippines, an American treaty ally.

Recent satellite images show that the Chinese have vastly expanded a number of reefs in the Spratlys, and that they are building a concrete runway on one island capable of handling military aircraft.

State Department officials said last week that Mr. Kerry would deliver a tough message to Chinese leaders, although his public comments on Saturday were subdued.

“I urged China through Foreign Minister Wang to take actions that will join everybody in helping to reduce tensions and increase the prospect of a diplomatic solution,” Mr. Kerry said.

The news conference was carefully scripted, with Chinese officials allowing only two questions: one from a Western news outlet directed at Mr. Kerry, and another posed to Mr. Wang by a reporter from China’s state news media.

Mr. Kerry, however, declined to respond to what was undoubtedly the most anticipated question of the day: what were his thoughts on the news that the Pentagon was considering sending military aircraft and ships to within 12 nautical miles of the Spratlys as a show of American resolve.

It was Mr. Wang, however, who responded to the question, breaching the agreed-upon protocol and suggesting that the presence of American military aircraft in the region would have little effect on China’s island-expanding venture. “It is the people’s demand of the government and our legitimate right,” he said.

The Economist