China late on Wednesday slammed a video shared on social media by the US embassy in Singapore that criticizes Beijing’s South China Sea claims, comparing them to the actions of an inconsiderate neighbor who intrudes on others’ space.
The roughly 90-second video shows a government-built apartment block inundated with clutter, voiced over in a Singaporean accent.
“This happens right outside Singapore’s doorstep, too, in the South China Sea, where one neighbor thinks he owns basically everything,” the narrator says, as the video cuts to a series of news clippings on China’s territorial disputes.
Photo: AFP
The post sparked a strident reaction from China’s embassy in Singapore.
On Facebook, the Chinese embassy said the video “deliberately distorts the ins-and-outs of the South China Sea issue.”
“Under joint efforts of China and ASEAN countries, the current situation in the South China Sea remains overall stable,” it added.
The embassy said it was “universally recognized that the US is the least qualified to even talk about international law,” adding that the US was “bullying and coercing other countries” on issues such as tariffs, and wanting control of the Panama Canal and Greenland.
In response to media queries, a US embassy spokesperson justified the social media post and said that the embassy presents US government policy and views on issues that affect itself and the entire region.
“Drawing an analogy to the local Singapore context, the video explains the US understanding of the dispute by referencing a phenomenon to which anyone around the world can relate,” the spokesperson said.
Beijing claims almost the entire disputed waterway, through which more than 60 percent of global maritime trade passes, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no merit.
Taiwan, as well as Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have partial claims to the sea.
The Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it “rejects attempts by foreign embassies to incite domestic reactions to international issues involving third countries.”
“Complex issues are best resolved through appropriate channels for effective diplomacy,” it said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS