STAFF/REUTERS - Protesters hold Vietnamese national flags and banners as they march during an anti-China demonstration on a street in Hanoi June 19, 2011.
BEIJING — China warned the United States on Wednesday not to let Southeast Asian countries drag it into ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea, saying Washington should instead counsel its allies to show restraint.
“I believe the individual countries are playing with fire,” Cui Tiankai, China’s vice foreign minister, told a small gathering of correspondents Wednesday. “I hope the fire doesn’t reach the United States.”
The Philippines, one of a half dozen claimants to a chain of disputed islands in the South China Sea, effectively rejected that warning Thursday, appealing to the United States to clarify the coverage of two countries’ mutual defense treaty and to provide Manila with naval vessels to help it patrol the area and fend off Chinese incursions.
Cui was speaking ahead of a scheduled weekend meeting in Hawaii, where U.S. and Chinese officials plan to open the first round of bilateral talks devoted specifically to concerns in the Asian and Pacific regions. The U.S. side will be headed by Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
The South China Sea dispute is not formally on the agenda, which was set before tensions erupted this month when a Chinese fishing boat became entangled with a Vietnamese oil exploration ship, damaging the ship’s undersea research cable. The clash at sea began an escalating series of taunts, threats and accusations, and culminated in the two sides conducting live-fire military exercises. There were also anti-Chinese demonstrations in Vietnam.
The Philippines has also expressed alarm at what it regards as increased Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea, where Beijing has warned other Asian countries to stop searching for oil near the disputed Spratly Islands. The Spratlys, an archipelago of largely uninhabited islands, reefs, cays and atolls, are claimed in their entirety by China, Taiwan and Vietnam and in part by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
In an interview in Washington, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said Thursday that Chinese “intrusions” into waters claimed by Manila have been “getting more aggressive” in recent months, apparently because of confirmation of large oil and gas reserves at Reed Bank in the Spratlys. He said his country has detected at least nine intrusions by Chinese vessels since February into the area, amounting to what he called “a creeping invasion of Reed Bank.” Chinese vessels have fired warning shots at Philippine fishing boats and harassed an exploration ship, del Rosario said. China has denied the allegations.
Reed Bank lies 85 nautical miles off the coast of the Philippine island of Palawan and nearly 600 nautical miles from the nearest coast of China. Beijing nevertheless claims the bank, as well as the entire Spratly archipelago.
“The situation is shaky out there,” del Rosario said. He said he is asking the Obama administration to “clarify” the territory covered by the two countries’ 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and to “provide us with the capacity” to better patrol the Spratlys and “establish a clear presence in the area.” He said the United States should be concerned about any “threat to maritime safety and freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. Del Rosario was scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday afternoon.
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