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US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy

South China Sea: US and China spar over ‘biggest threat’ in disputed waters

  • China has ignored rules in advancing unlawful maritime claims, top US diplomat Antony Blinken told a virtual UN Security Council meeting
  • Beijing’s ambassador shot back by calling the US the ‘biggest threat to stability’ in flashpoint region

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A US Navy photo shows American, British and Dutch warships conducting operations in the South China Sea on July 29. Photo: Twitter
Laura Zhouin Beijing
China has faced “no consequences” for ignoring rules in the South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the latest UN maritime security summit, as the two powers blamed each other for stirring up tensions in the flashpoint region.

Joining the United Nations Security Council’s maritime security meeting via video link, Blinken took aim at what he called “dangerous encounters between vessels at sea and provocative actions to advance unlawful maritime claims” in the South China Sea, the resource-rich waterway where China’s extensive claims have been contested by Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

“The United States has made clear its concerns regarding actions that intimidate and bully other states from lawfully accessing their maritime resources. And we and other countries, including South China Sea claimants, have protested such behaviour and unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea,” Blinken said at the virtual meeting chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hosted by Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Monday.

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“Some may assert that resolving the dispute in the South China Sea is not the business of the United States or any other country that is not a claimant to the islands and waters. But it is the business and, even more, the responsibility of every member-state to defend the rules that we’ve all agreed to follow and peacefully resolve maritime disputes,” Blinken said, according to a State Department transcript, in a veiled reference to China.

“Conflict in the South China Sea or in any ocean would have serious global consequences for security and for commerce. What’s more, when a state faces no consequences for ignoring these rules, it fuels greater impunity and instability everywhere.”

Blinken’s remarks were soon met with protests from China, with Dai Bing, the Chinese deputy ambassador at the UN, calling the US the “biggest threat to stability in the South China Sea”.

As the only major power to have failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), an international treaty that lays down a comprehensive regime of law and order in the world’s oceans and seas, the US “has no credibility … to act as a judge of the convention and to dictate and interfere with other countries”, Dai said, according to a transcript released on the website of the Chinese mission at the UN.

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