Describing the move as “strengthening the policy of the United States,” the top diplomat of the United States stated that “Beijing’s claims of offshore resources in most of the South China Sea are completely illegal, such as so is your campaign of intimidation to control them. “
“The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire. The United States stands behind our allies and partners in Southeast Asia in protecting its sovereign rights to offshore resources, in accordance with its rights and obligations under international law, “Pompeo said in a long statement.
The move is “quite significant,” said Gregory Poling, a senior fellow in Southeast Asia and director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“What the United States basically said is that we are going to remain neutral as to who owns which island or rock in the South China Sea, but we are no longer going to remain silent on China’s illegal claims to the waters,” Poling explained, adding that in the past, the United States had been “cautious” about it.
Poling told CNN that “a lot depends on how” the United States follows through on Monday’s announcement, but called it “a major diplomatic coup.”
“It allows the United States to clearly point to China’s activities as illegal, not just destabilizing or useless, but to say that this is illegal,” he said. “That helps partners like Vietnam and the Philippines, and it’s going to put pressure on other countries, the Europeans, for example, to get out of the fence and say something themselves.”
Aligning with the UN
Pompeo said Monday the United States was aligning its position with that of a 2016 decision by a United Nations court that sided with the Philippines against China’s claims that it had historical and economic claims in much of the Sea of the South China. That unanimous decision “rejected the maritime claims (of the People’s Republic of China) as having no basis in international law,” said the main US diplomat, adding: “As the United States has previously stated, and as specifically provided in the Convention, the Arbitration The decision of the court is final and legally binding for both parties. “
In the statement, Pompeo also pointed to China’s attempts to establish maritime claims within the Exclusive Economic Zones of other countries, areas that extend 200 miles out to sea from the coast. The top US diplomat specifically said that China “cannot legally assert a maritime claim, including claims from the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) arising from Scarborough Reef and the Spratly Islands, off the Philippines in areas the Court found to be in the Philippine EEZ or its continental shelf. “
He also rejected China’s claims on Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal – “both are completely under the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the Philippines” – and said that China “has no legal territorial or maritime claim from (or derived from) James Shoal , a fully submerged feature just 50 nautical miles from Malaysia and over 1,000 nautical miles from the Chinese coast. “
Furthermore, the United States “rejects any PRC maritime claim in the waters surrounding the Vanguard Bank (off Vietnam), Luconia Shoals (off Malaysia), the waters in Brunei’s EEZ, and Natuna Besar (off Indonesia)” .
“Any action by the PRC to harass the fishing or development of hydrocarbons from other states in these waters, or to carry out such activities unilaterally, is illegal,” Pompeo said.
Zack Cooper, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, told CNN that “that’s really the core of this.”
“The United States is professing support for the rights of these countries in those areas. Now, if the United States wants to come to support an ally or partner in the South China Sea that is being pushed by China, it now has the legal justification for say From our point of view, China’s actions are illegal … even though Pompeo has previously indicated that these are coercive actions by the Chinese, he probably would not have said that they are illegal, now he can, “he explained.
Operating under the name of Nimitz Carrier Strike Force, the US carriers, USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan “conducted various tactical exercises designed to maximize air defense capabilities and extend the range of long-range precision sea attacks from aircraft based aircraft carriers, “said a statement from the US Navy last week.
It is the first time since 2014, and only the second since 2001, that two U.S. carriers have operated together in the South China Sea, according to Lt. Cmdr. Sean Brophy, a spokesman aboard the Reagan.
CNN’s Kylie Atwood and Brad Lendon contributed to this report.
.
