United States Could Punish Chinese Officials For Claims From South China Sea

WASHINGTON – The nation’s top diplomat for East Asia said in remarks Tuesday that the Trump administration could use sanctions to attack the actions of Chinese officials in the much-disputed South China Sea.

“Nothing is off the table,” said David Stilwell, deputy secretary of state for the Office for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, when asked if the United States would consider using sanctions to stop China.

“There is room for that and this is a language that China understands, demonstrable and tangible action,” he told a virtual audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Wherever it is, Beijing increasingly wants to claim, coerce and control. By its nature, it cannot accept a pluralistic world with fundamental freedoms of choice and conscience,” Stilwell said, adding that the United States’ participation in the region was simply enforcing existing law.

“This is cleaning. These are things that we should have done for a long time,” he said.

Stilwell’s comments follow in the footsteps of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s reprimand on Monday of Beijing’s “harassment campaign” in the South China Sea.

Pompeo said the United States would strengthen its position in the region and described most of China’s land claims in the disputed waters as illegal. “The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire,” he said.

The Chinese embassy in Washington also said Monday that the United States was “giving its weight in all the seas of the world.”

“On the pretext of preserving stability, it is flexing muscles, causing tension and inciting confrontation in the region,” the statement said, adding that the United States “was not a country directly involved in the disputes” and was interfering.

The developing coronavirus health pandemic and mounting tensions in the South China Sea are the latest in a series of problems shaking the relationship between Washington and Beijing. The world’s two largest economies are engaged in a disruptive trade fight with intellectual property theft and cybersecurity, proving to be a major point of conflict between the two nations.

Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray criticized the Chinese government for its use of espionage and cyber attacks against the United States. He said the Chinese campaign has been “one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.”

The South China Sea, home to more than 200 specks of land, serves as a gateway to global shipping lanes where nearly $ 4 trillion of trade passes annually. More than $ 1 trillion of that amount is tied to the US market. The sea is also home to an estimated $ 2.6 trillion in recoverable offshore oil and gas.

Five claimants, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, occupy nearly 70 disputed reefs and islets in the South China Sea. Over the years, plaintiffs have built and expanded approximately 90 outposts in these contested features.

The numerous overlapping sovereign claims on the land have made it a home for advanced military posts. Beijing has most of these land features, with approximately 27 outposts dotted throughout.

Beijing’s interest in developing the land through the South China Sea is by no means new.

China first took possession of the Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef in 1988 and has since equipped them with deep-water ports, airplane hangars, communication facilities, administrative offices and a 10,000-foot airstrip.

In May 2018, China quietly installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems at three of its fortified posts in the western Philippines.

According to US intelligence reports, the facility marked the first Chinese missile deployments at Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef on the Spratly Islands. The Spratlys, claimed by six countries, are located approximately two-thirds of the way from southern Vietnam to the southern Philippines.