Kerry Urges Beijing to Halt ‘Problematic Actions’ in South China Sea

Interactive Feature: What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea

Mr. Kerry later told diplomats here that he had a “good meeting” with Mr. Wang and expressed hope that headway in defusing the South China Sea disputes would be made in the coming days.

“I hope very much that at this meeting, over the course of today and tomorrow, we will find a way to move forward effectively together, all of us,” Mr. Kerry said. “We want to ensure the security of critical sea lanes and fishing grounds, and we want to see that disputes in the area are managed peacefully and on the basis of international law.”

Though Mr. Kerry believes his conversation with Mr. Wang was constructive, the two diplomats did not agree on any specific proposals, American officials said.

Mr. Wang’s public comments about the South China Sea in recent days have not provided American officials with much grounds for optimism. This week, he dismissed previous calls by the United States for a freeze on the construction of artificial islands as “unrealistic,” insisted that all of China’s reclamation work was being done in Chinese territory and asserted that efforts to establish a code of conduct for the South China Sea were not a proper subject for the meeting of Southeast Asian nations here.

Of the nations represented here, the Philippines and Vietnam — which have claims to South China Sea waters that overlap with China’s — have been among the most vocal about China’s recent actions, while countries like Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand have expressed less concern.

“As we speak, we see no letup on the unilateral and aggressive activities of our northern neighbor in the South China Sea,” Albert F. del Rosario, the Philippines’ foreign secretary, said on Tuesday.

Mr. del Rosario has said he supports the United States’ call for a freeze on the construction of artificial islands, saying that the Philippines would halt its own land reclamation work if China did. But such a freeze, if agreed upon, should not be interpreted as legitimizing China’s recent construction, he has argued.

For all the Obama administration’s talk of shifting more focus to Asia, Mr. Kerry has also used meetings like the one here to confer on an array of other issues, especially Syria. On Wednesday afternoon, he met with Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, who was also attending the gathering.

Turkey and the United States recently agreed to clear Islamic State militants from a strip of Syrian territory near the Turkish border and to provide air cover for a moderate Syrian opposition force there. But the small number of moderate Syrian fighters that the Pentagon has trained have since been attacked by the Nusra Front, a rebel group that the United States claims is linked to Al Qaeda.

Mr. Cavusoglu suggested on Wednesday that the difficulties the moderate Syrian rebels have encountered would be eased once Turkey became more involved in the fight. “We will also start our fight against Daesh very effectively soon,” he told reporters, using an alternate name for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “Then the ground will be safer for the moderate opposition that are fighting Daesh.”

Mr. Kerry planned to meet Wednesday evening with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. On Monday, the two diplomats and Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, held an unusual three-way meeting in Doha, Qatar, on the Syria crisis.

Amid the seemingly intractable disputes over the South China Sea and Syria, there was visible progress on Wednesday in at least one area: Mr. Kerry’s recovery from the broken leg he suffered in May during a cycling accident.

During his round-the-world trip, Mr. Kerry has progressed from using crutches to walking with a silver-handled cane lent to him by Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

“This cane has a history,” said Mr. Kerry, noting that it had belonged to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., the family patriarch, when he served as ambassador to Britain.

It was used by his son John F. Kennedy before he became president, and later by John’s brother Edward, who twice lent the cane to Mr. Kerry after knee surgery.

“It’s the third time I’ve used it,” Mr. Kerry said. “Three times is lucky, right? No hard breaks.”

NYT