US strategy paper details China's land reclamations

The US Department of Defense's comprehensive strategy for maritime security in the Asia Pacific points fingers at China's land reclamation in the South China Sea.

The report, which was released on Aug 21 and is called Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy, has detailed descriptions of land reclamation in the South China Sea.

It said that China "reclaimed more than 2,900 acres of land from December 2013 to June 2015, accounting for approximately 95 percent of all reclaimed land in the Nansha Islands", called the Spratlys in the Pentagon report.

The report outlines four approaches that the Pentagon is taking in the region.

Those include strengthening US military capacity to deter conflict and coercion and respond decisively when needed; working with US allies and partners to build their capacities to address potential challenges in their waters and across the region; leveraging military diplomacy; and working to strengthen regional security institutions and encourage the development of an open and effective regional security architecture.

David Shear, US assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said one notable recent development in maritime Asia is China's expansion of disputed features and artificial island construction.

"While land reclamation is not new, and China is not the only claimant to have conducted reclamation, China's recent activities outweigh other efforts in size, pace and nature," he told a press conference at the Pentagon on Aug 21.

In testimony before the US Senate in May, Shear told lawmakers that in the Nansha (Spratly) Islands, Vietnam has 48 outposts, the Philippines eight, China eight, Malaysia five and China's Taiwan one.

Although Shear repeated what his boss Defense Secretary Ash Carter said earlier that the US will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as US forces do around the world now, he did not reply to reporters about whether US forces will go within 12 nautical miles of the Chinese facilities.

Shear, a former State Department official, noted that US-China defense diplomacy has yielded positive results, including a reduction in unsafe intercepts since August 2014.

He said Pentagon and China's Ministry of National Defense concluded a historic memorandum of understanding on rules and behavior for safety of air and maritime encounters during President Obama's visit to Beijing last November.

"This MOU currently includes an annex on ship-to-ship encounters, and we are working to conclude an annex on air-to-air encounters by the end of 2015," Shear said.

He said that the US has urged China and other claimants to implement a permanent halt to reclamation, construction and militarization of those features.

"I stress that that is an approach we have used not only with the Chinese, but with the other claimants as well," Shear said.

China has long accused the US of hyping tensions in the South China Sea and regards the US government as biased in looking at China's maritime territorial disputes with US allies, in order to achieve the US rebalance-to-Asia strategy.

At the foreign ministers' meeting of the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum held early this month in Malaysia, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized that the situation in the South China Sea is stable on the whole, with no possibility of major conflicts seen.

He said China objects to any non-constructive words or deeds that attempt to exaggerate the disagreements, hype confrontation and heat up tensions that do not conform to reality.

Wang noted that China also has a stake in the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, adding that to date there has not been a case in which freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is impeded.

The foreign minister said China itself is a victim on the South China Sea issue, citing how the Philippines illegally occupied a Chinese island there.

He said China has exercised the utmost restraint in order to uphold peace and stability there.

Wang reiterated China's position of seeking to peacefully resolve disputes through negotiation and consultation on the basis of respecting historical facts and in accordance with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

"This position will not change," he said.

China announced the completion of land reclamation at the end of June. But it will build facilities mainly for public good purposes, including a multi-functional lighthouse, search and rescue facilities for maritime emergencies, a meteorological observatory station and a maritime scientific and research center, as well as medical and first aid facilities, according to Wang.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 08/24/2015 page1)