US President Barack Obama and allies from Southeast Asia were yesterday to turn their attention to China — which has expanded its island building in the South China Sea — on the second day of a summit intended to improve commercial links and provide a united front on maritime disputes with Beijing.
After a first day focused on trade and economic issues, Obama and his counterparts from ASEAN were to try to arrive at a common position on the South China Sea during a second day of talks at Sunnylands in California.
China and several ASEAN states have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, but not all the Southeast Asian nations agree on how to handle them.
US officials want the summit to produce a statement calling for China to follow international law and handle disputes peacefully.
“We will be continuing to work with our ASEAN partners on a potential statement that we might issue together,” US National Security Adviser Susan Rice told reporters on Monday.
“We obviously have issued such statements in the past with ASEAN, and in it we consistently underscore our shared commitment to a peaceful resolution of disputes, freedom of commerce and navigation, the rule of law and the necessity of disputes being resolved through peaceful, legal means,” she added.
According to satellite photographs published as the summit convened, China’s South China Sea island-building has expanded into the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島).
Images posted on The Diplomat Web site show dredging and filling at two new sites in the Chinese-held island chain about 15km from a Chinese military base on Woody Island (Yongxing Island, 永興島). The photos show a helicopter base under construction, according to the article by Victor Robert Lee, an analyst who analyzes China’s land-reclamation efforts using satellite imagery.
The latest dredging began after Dec. 2 last year, and was creating terrain on a reef adjacent to North Island (北島), which has been occupied by China since 1950, according to Lee’s article. At China-occupied Tree island (Jhaoshu Island, 趙述島) — 5.5km northwest of North Island (北島) — a dredger can be seen expanding a port area and piping sediment onto a new area of fill. Satellite images show the work at Tree Island started after Oct. 18 last year.
Although China dominated the summit, the White House emphasized non-China related aspects, such as strengthening commercial ties. The CEOs of International Business Machines Corp, Microsoft Corp and Cisco Systems were brought into Monday’s private sessions with the leaders to help make the point.
Monday’s discussions with “private sector partners” ranged from the need for capital to creating an entrepreneurial culture in Asia that is prepared to tolerate business failure.
However, even business leaders were watching the South China Sea issue.
“What keeps us up at night is that one of the big tension areas is the South China Sea,” US ASEAN Business Council president Alexander Feldman said. “We would like... to see those differences and overlapping claims be addressed in a way that is done through discussion.”
Additional reporting by bloomberg
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