The US Navy’s top officer is urging China to work with the US in the South China Sea despite Beijing’s declaration of “indisputable sovereignty” over an area where more than half the world’s oil tankers transit.
Admiral Gary Roughead, US chief of naval operations, said on Wednesday it was important to build cooperative ties with China’s navy, which has pushed further afield as Beijing’s influence and international trade has grown.
“The work we do in the Somali basin, in my opinion, should be replicated in the South China Sea and other places at the same level of cooperation,” Roughead told a forum on US naval power organized by the Government Executive Media Group, a Washington publisher.
China sent a task force of three warships nearly two years ago to protect Chinese merchant vessels from pirates off the coast of Somalia.
The last time China went to sea in such a way was the early 15th century, when Ming Dynasty explorer Zheng He (鄭和) sailed his fleets as far as the Horn of Africa.
The Chinese, along with the other nations operating in the area, including the US, routinely share location and course information, while communicating about possible pirate attacks and suspicious vessels, said Navy Commander Amy Derrick-Frost, a spokeswoman for the US 5th Fleet headquartered in Bahrain.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy did not respond to a request for comment on Roughead’s call for such naval cooperation in the South China Sea.
The area is home to a complex set of territorial disputes involving Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. China’s claims, the broadest, cover all of the Spratly and Paracel islands and most of the South China Sea, which is the shortest route between the Pacific and Indian oceans and has some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
China has warned its neighbors to stay off disputed islands in the area, declaring it holds “indisputable sovereignty” over the waters, but it has said it would continue to let others freely navigate the waterway of more than 1.7 million square kilometers.
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