US Secretary of State John Kerry increased diplomatic pressure on China yesterday to resolve maritime disputes with Southeast Asia based on international legal principles, rather than through individual deals as Beijing prefers.
Speaking in Jakarta, Kerry said the stability of the Asia-Pacific depended on achieving a binding code of conduct to help nations peacefully address competing claims in the South China Sea and to avoid conflict in one of the world’s most strategically important waterways.
The US has been increasingly uneasy at what it sees as China’s effort to gain creeping control over waters in the Asia-Pacific, including its declaration on Nov. 23 last year of an air defense identification zone in an area of the East China Sea that includes islands at the center of a dispute with Japan.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that the region’s future stability will depend in part on the success and the timeliness of the effort to produce a code of conduct,” Kerry told a news conference in the Indonesian capital during a trip to Asia and the Middle East.
“The longer the process takes, the longer tensions will simmer and the greater the chance of a miscalculation by somebody that could trigger a conflict. That is in nobody’s interest,” he said.
China claims about 90 percent of the 3.5 million square kilometer South China Sea, depicting what it sees as its area on maps with a so-called nine-dash line, looping far out over the sea from south China.
Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam also have claims over the South China Sea, or parts of it.
At stake is control over what are believed to be significant reserves of oil and gas.
Estimates for proven and undiscovered oil reserves in the entire sea range from 28 billion barrels of oil, to as high as 213 billion, the US Energy Information Administration said in a March 2008 report.
Kerry’s comments follow stepped-up efforts by the ASEAN grouping to persuade a reluctant China to agree to a legally binding code of conduct in the congested waters that stretch from off China’s south coast to the east of mainland Southeast Asia.
Kerry added that negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would continue and he believed the US Congress would come to an appropriate conclusion on the trade talks.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese