China Spurns Sea-Claim Arbitration Pushed by U.S. and Allies
China dismissed calls for arbitration to resolve disputes after the U.S. and Japanvowed to resist attempts to seize contested territory by force, signaling further tensions in Asian waters vital to world trade.
Qi Jianguo, deputy chief of the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, sought to reassure neighbors of China’s peaceful intentions while affirming sovereignty in areas of the East China Sea and South China Sea. He said a maritime dispute with the Philippines could be solved through “open-minded channels” rather than theUnited Nations.
“We don’t see any necessity to resort to an international tribunal,” Qi told the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singaporetoday. Patrols by Chinese warships and surveillance vessels “within our own territory” are “totally legitimate and uncontroversial,” he said.
The world’s biggest economies have struggled to agree on rules for operating in the seas and resolving territory disputes, raising tensions as China’s military strength grows. President Barack Obama will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in California on June 7 amid disagreements over cyber-espionage, Iran’s weapons program and Syria’s civil war.
Philippine Defense Minister Voltaire Gazmin, who sat on the same panel as Qi, said he hoped the UN arbitration panel would direct China to “desist from undertaking unlawful acts that violate our territorial rights.” The Philippines and Vietnam reject China’s map of the South China Sea as a basis for joint oil and gas exploration.
Trade Concerns
“Arbitration is a friendly and peaceful mechanism,” Gazmin said. “We hope that there will be no adverse effects on our trade relations with China.”
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore yesterday that the U.S. “stands firmly against any coercive attempts to alter the status quo” in disputed waters. He also sought to reassure China that moves by the U.S. to shift military resources to Asia didn’t amount to a containment policy.
“How can the U.S. assure China of our intentions -- that’s really the whole point behind closer military-to-military relationships,” Hagel said in response to a question from a Chinese delegate at the event hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “We don’t want miscalculations and misunderstandings and misinterpretations, and the only way you do that is you talk to each other.”
’Increasingly Severe’
Japan, a U.S. ally, boosted defense spending for the first time in 11 years to defend its territory in an “increasingly severe security environment,” Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told the forum yesterday. He said Japan, while committed to pacifism, may create a National Security Council and wants to establish a regional body at the “earliest possible timing” to prevent crises over incidents at sea.
“We sometimes hear criticism that Japan is abandoning its identity as a ’peace-loving nation’ and is attempting to challenge the existing international order,” Onodera said. “These views are a total misperception. The aim of the aforementioned initiatives is to enable Japan to make a more proactive and creative contribution toward regional stability.”
Hagel sought to reassure Asian allies yesterday that budget reductions won’t derail U.S. commitment to their security. A year after the Pentagon said it would “rebalance” its strategy to focus more on the region after a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department faces as much as $500 billion in cuts over the next nine years as part of a deficit-reduction law.
Military Shift
Hagel met separately at the forum with defense officials from Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea and China. In his speech he cited new U.S. defense capabilities, including using lasers to defend ships at sea and putting remotely piloted aircraft on aircraft carriers, while expounding on plans to shift 60 percent of naval assets to Asia by 2020.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung warned on May 31 that miscalculations may disrupt the estimated two-thirds of global trade that moves through the South China Sea as countries compete for fish, oil and gas.
“A single irresponsible action or instigation of conflict could well lead to the interruption of such huge trade flow, thus causing unforeseeable consequences not only to regional economies, but also to the entire world,” he said.
Japan’s purchase last year of East China Sea islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China led to anti-Japan demonstrations that reduced China sales atToyota Motor Corp. (7203), Nissan Motor (7201) Co. and Honda Motor Co.
’Not Convinced’
Chinese military officials at the forum pushed back against the U.S. Major-General Yao Yunzhu, director of the Center for China-America Defense Relations at the Academy of Military Science within the People’s Liberation Army, said U.S. plans for a missile-defense system in Asia were “detrimental” to establishing trust with China.
“U.S. government officials have on several occasions clarified that the rebalance is not against China,” Yao told Hagel yesterday during a question-and-answer session. “However, China is not convinced.”
Even as he used the forum to seek closer ties, Hagel accused China of waging cyber attacks. “The United States has expressed our concerns about the growing threat of cyber intrusions, some of which appear to be tied to the Chinese government and military,” he said.
Sensitive Data
China’s reported attempts to obtain sensitive U.S. military data as well as commercial intellectual property through electronic espionage have been highlighted repeatedly by Defense Department and White House officials. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said in March that China is waging a “large scale” computer campaign to stealtrade secrets.
Chinese officials wanted to exchange views with Hagel at the meeting, particularly on cybersecurity, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing on May 31.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said the U.S. wants more exchanges with China to overcome a lack of trust between the forces. In the past year, China observed U.S.-Philippine military maneuvers, joined a counter-piracy exercise in the Gulf of Aden and received an invitation to take part in the Pacific’s largest multicountry naval deployment.
“We are not in a Cold War,” Locklear said. “Certainly we don’t desire that with our Chinese partners.”
Sea Law
The lack of trust between the countries stemmed in part from different interpretations of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, known as Unclos, Chinese Senior Colonel Zhou Bo said at a session with Locklear yesterday. China opposes U.S. military patrols within its exclusive economic zone, an area stretching 200 nautical miles from land.
“Unclos is not a holy bible,” Zhou said. “It’s basically an important international law, but it’s a result of compromises.”
The Philippines asked the UN in January to rule on its dispute with China, which moved to take control of the Scarborough Shoal a year after a standoff between Philippine and Chinese ships. The shoal is about three times closer to the Philippines than China, the Philippines said in an arbitration note.
Countries can avoid serious incidents at sea by agreeing to resolve disputes according to Unclos, Junichi Ihara, a Japanese foreign ministry official, said at the forum.
“Every country has to refrain from trying to change the status quo by force or coercion,” Ihara said. “That is the bottom line.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok atdtenkate@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson atrmathieson3@bloomberg.net
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