spot_img
28.1 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

US, China swap charges; rivalry mars SEA talks

- Advertisement -

Washington's top diplomat urged Southeast Asia on Thursday to cut ties with Chinese companies helping build islands in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, even as Beijing denounced the United States as “the biggest driver of militarization” in the region.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s comments came at a regional Asian summit overshadowed by the US-China rivalry over a range of issues, from trade to the coronavirus.

Tensions are also simmering over the South China Sea, with the US last month sanctioning 24 Chinese state-owned companies it said had helped Beijing’s military buildup in the resource-rich waterway.

Pompeo said it was time for Southeast Asian governments to reconsider their own relationship with firms working in the sea.

“Don’t just speak up, but act,” he told the 10 foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) during an online summit.

- Advertisement -

“Reconsider business dealings with the very state-owned companies that bully ASEAN coastal states in the South China Sea.

“Don’t let the Chinese Communist party walk over us and our people.”

This year’s ASEAN summit comes days after Beijing launched ballistic missiles in the South China Sea as part of live-fire exercises.

Vietnam, which is chairing the summit, expressed “serious concern” about recent militarization of the sea.

“This has eroded trust and confidence, increased tension and undermined peace, security and rule of law in the region,” said Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.

But the Philippines already said last week it would not follow the US lead because it needed Chinese investment, even as a fresh dispute between the two nations over Scarborough Shoal – one of the region’s richest fishing grounds – hangs over the talks.

And Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi laid blame on the United States for tensions, claiming Washington was “becoming the biggest driver” of the waterway’s militarization.

Beijing claims the majority of the resource-rich South China Sea, invoking its so-called nine-dash line to justify its alleged historic rights to the key trade waterway, also contested Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

As tensions simmer, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told an online meeting of foreign ministers from Southeast Asian countries that “the United States is becoming the biggest driver of militarization of the South China Sea.”

Wang said that China’s greatest interest in the waters was “peace and stability,” while accusing the US of “creating tension and seeking profit from it.”

“The United States is becoming the most dangerous factor damaging peace in the South China Sea,” Wang added, the state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday.

China has reinforced its claim to the South China Sea by building up small shoals and reefs into military bases with airstrips and port facilities.

It rejected a 2016 UN-backed tribunal’s ruling that its claims were without legal basis.

This year’s ASEAN summit is the first meeting since the US announced sanctions on two dozen Chinese companies over Beijing’s construction of artificial islands in the disputed waters, which Beijing blasted as “tyrannical.”

Pompeo accused the Chinese Communist Party this week of being engaged in a “clear and intensifying pattern of bullying its neighbors.”

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles