US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday urged Southeast Asia to cut ties with Chinese companies helping build islands in the South China Sea, weeks after the US blacklisted two dozen firms working in the disputed waters.
Pompeo’s comments came at an ASEAN summit overshadowed by the US-China rivalry over a range of issues, from trade to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tensions are also simmering over the South China Sea, with the US last month sanctioning 24 Chinese state-owned companies that it said had helped Beijing’s military buildup in the resource-rich waterway.
It is time for Southeast Asian governments to reconsider their own relationship with firms working in the sea, Pompeo said.
“Don’t just speak up, but act,” he told the 10 ASEAN foreign ministers during an online summit. “Reconsider business dealings with the very state-owned companies that bully ASEAN coastal states in the South China Sea. Don’t let the Chinese Communist Party walk over us and our people.”
This year’s ASEAN summit began days after Beijing launched ballistic missiles in the South China Sea as part of live-fire exercises.
Vietnam, which is chairing the summit, expressed “serious concern” about recent militarization of the sea.
“This has eroded trust and confidence, increased tension and undermined peace, security and rule of law in the region,” Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh said.
However, the Philippines last week said that it would not follow the US lead because it needed Chinese investment, even as a fresh dispute between Manila and Beijing over the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) — one of the region’s richest fishing grounds — hangs over the talks.
Taiwan also has claims in the area, including the Scarborough Shoal.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) blamed the US for tensions, saying that Washington was “becoming the biggest driver” of the waterway’s militarization.
China claims the majority of the South China Sea, invoking its so-called nine-dash line to justify what it says are historic rights to the key trade waterway.
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