The US should not obstruct efforts by China and its neighbors to agree on a code of conduct in the disputed South China Sea, the Chinese ambassador to the US said on Monday, as US President Donald Trump prepared for his first official visit to Asia.
Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai (崔天凱) said the US has no territorial claim in those waters and should let countries in the region manage their disputes in a “friendly and effective way.”
The Scarborough Shoal is known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) in China and Taiwan, which also lays claim to it.
Beijing’s island-building in the South China Sea has drawn criticism from Washington which says it has a national interest in freedom of navigation in sea lanes critical for world trade.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this month said China’s “provocative actions” challenge international law and norms.
Efforts to forge a legally binding code of conduct between China and the diverse members of the ASEAN, have long been stymied by Beijing’s reluctance to negotiate with nations as a bloc and differences within the ASEAN itself.
The Singaporean prime minister last week said the negotiations were likely to take years.
Cui implied that Washington was making that more difficult.
“I think it would certainly be better if others including the United States would not try to interfere in this constructive process, would not try to create obstacles to early agreement on the [code of conduct],” he told reporters at the Chinese Embassy in Washington. “I think that this is our hope. This is also the hope of the ASEAN countries.”
Cui was previewing China’s preparations for Trump’s five-nation trip to Asia that includes a state visit to China.
He said it comes at a “very important moment” for relations between the two world powers — building on progress made when Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met Trump at his Florida resort in April.
The ambassador said North Korea will be a priority in the talks.
He warned that tensions over the North’s nuclear program could get more dangerous without more efforts to reach a negotiated solution.
Asked whether comments from Trump — who has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if it attacks — were making worse, Cui urged all parties to “refrain from doing anything that might escalate the tension.”
The ambassador predicted concrete results at the summit on economics and trade but did not say what they might be. Trump wants to narrow the gaping US trade deficit with China — a goal Cui said China shares although he cautioned it would take time as it was a “structural” problem.
He rejected US accusations that China was engaged in “predatory” policies at the expense of its neighbors.
Cui said those saying things about China, “might just look into the mirror and it might be describing themselves.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion