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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged top Southeast Asian diplomats to cut ties with Chinese companies that help build islands in the South China Sea, weeks after Washington blacklisted them. two dozen companies working in the disputed waters.
“Don’t just talk, but act,” Pompeo told the 10 foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) during an online summit on Thursday.
The top US diplomat said regional governments should “reconsider trade deals with the very state-owned companies that intimidate the ASEAN coastal states in the South China Sea.”
He added, “Don’t let the Chinese Communist Party trample on us and our people.”
This year’s summit is overshadowed by the growing rivalry between the United States and China over a range of issues, from trade to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tensions are also simmering over the South China Sea, with the United States last month sanctioning 24 Chinese state-owned companies that it said helped Beijing’s military consolidation on the resource-rich waterway.
Last week, Beijing launched ballistic missiles into the South China Sea as part of live-fire exercises.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed the United States for the tensions, saying that Washington was “becoming the main driver” of militarization.
Scott Heidler of Al Jazeera, who has frequently covered annual ASEAN summits, said that while the 10 countries in the bloc this year were looking to work together to help restart their coronavirus-affected economies, China and the United States “continue intensifying his rhetoric and positions in the region. “
“Both of them [China and the US] they are moving military assets to areas of disputed territories, “he said, adding that the growing tension also involved” diplomatic actions, sanctions and threats. “
China claims the vast majority of the South China Sea, invoking its so-called nine-dash line to justify what it says are historic rights to the key commercial waterway.
However, in 2016, an international court in The Hague rejected China’s claim, saying it was illegal under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
But since the ruling, Beijing has stepped up the construction of several artificial islands capable of holding ships and planes.
Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan dispute parts of China’s declared territory at sea.
A Chinese company included in the US blacklist, Communications Construction Company, is involved in the expansion of a Philippine airport in Sangley, a former US naval facility outside Manila. [File: Francis R Malasig/EPA]
Vietnam, which is chairing the ASEAN virtual meeting, expressed “serious concern” over the recent military build-up of the sea.
“This has eroded confidence, increased tension and undermined peace, security and the rule of law in the region,” Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh said.
Meanwhile, the Philippines already said last week that it would not follow the example of the United States because it needed Chinese investment, even as a new dispute between Manila and Beijing over Scarborough Shoal, one of the richest fishing grounds in the region, looms over the talks. .
A Chinese company included on the US blacklist, Communications Construction Company, is involved in the expansion of a Philippine airport in Sangley, a former US naval facility outside the capital Manila.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
