Senator Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, accused China on Sunday of using the coronavirus pandemic as cover to seize power in disputed regions along its borders.
Referring to recent actions that Beijing has taken in the South China Sea and in the Himalayas along its border with India, Cotton said that with the world’s attention focused on the global public crisis, China has been busy doing territorial grabbing. .
“The Chinese Communist Party is certainly using the pandemic to try to assert claims and take very aggressive measures against almost all of its neighbors,” Cotton said in “Sunday Morning Futures.” “China has essentially invaded India, an ally of ours, and they have killed 20 Indian soldiers.”
He added: “Mainland China is in the South China Sea. They have taken aggressive measures against our partners, countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam. They have repeatedly invaded airspace in recent weeks in Taiwan. And just last week, they took aggressive action against Japan, the East China Sea. “
CHINA LAUNCHES 10 DAYS OF INDIAN SOLDIERS AFTER MORTAL CLOSURE
Satellite images released this week by Maxar, a Colorado-based satellite imagery company, show new construction activity along the Galwan River valley along the China-India border, even as diplomats from both countries They said the military commanders had agreed to withdraw from a confrontation there.
The images seemed to show that the Indians had built a wall next to them and that the Chinese had expanded an advanced camp at the end of a long road connected to Chinese military bases further from the ill-defined border, according to experts.
The contradictions in words and deeds showed the fragility of a deal after the worst violence since the Asian giants went to war in 1962 over their competing claims in the arid border region, experts said.
China has said that India first changed the status quo last August when it divided the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two federal territories: the Jammu and Kashmir territory and the Ladakh territory, parts of which are disputed by China.
Indian authorities said the clash culminating in this month’s deadly clash in the Galwan Valley, part of a remote stretch of the 3,380-kilometer (2,100-mile) Current Control Line established after the 1962 war, began beginnings of May. when large contingents of Chinese soldiers entered the Indian-controlled territory deeply at three locations in Ladakh, pitching tents.
After some skirmishes in May, Indian and Chinese commanders met on June 6 to settle an agreement that would reduce tensions.
The two sides have agreed to build observation posts on either side of the mouth of the Galwan River, Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong told the Press Trust of India news agency on Tuesday.
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Meanwhile, in the South China Sea, China has taken increasingly aggressive measures in recent years to bolster its claims on strategic waters, which it loosely marks with a so-called nine-line line that overlaps with coastal waters and the territorial claims of members of ASEAN States Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei. Taiwan has also filed a claim in vast stretches of the disputed waters.
In July 2016, an international arbitration court overturned China’s vast historical claims to waters based on UNCLOS. China declined to participate in the case and dismissed the ruling as a sham.
In recent years, China transformed seven disputed reefs into island missile-protected bases, including three with military-grade airstrips, and continues to develop them into actions that triggered protests and alarmed rival plaintiff states as well as the United States. and its Asia. and western allies.
In recent months, China has come under fire for what rival plaintiffs say were aggressive actions in the disputed waters as countries struggled to deal with the coronavirus.
Vietnam protested in April after a Chinese coast guard boat rammed and sank a boat with eight fishermen off the Paracel Islands. The Philippines supported Vietnam and protested the new territorial districts announced by China in large swaths of the sea.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
