Singapore: US Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a sharp rebuke to China for its incursions in the South China Sea, warning its actions there amount to coercion and intimidation and affirming that the US will support its allies in the region against Beijing's advances.
"We know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea", she said in a major foreign policy speech on Tuesday in Singapore in which she laid out the Biden administration's vision for the Indo-Pacific. "Beijing's actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations", she said.
The speech sought to cement the US commitment to supporting its allies in an area of growing importance to the Biden administration, which has made countering China's influence globally a centerpiece of its foreign policy.
On July 12, 2016, the international tribunal on the South China Sea struck the worst blow to China's claims over almost all of the SCS, saying its much-touted nine-dash line has no legal basis. The tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the nine-dash line', the five-judge tribunal appointed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) based in The Hague adjudicating on the petition filed by the Philippines had said.
The US has been periodically conducting naval and aerial missions through the SCS to challenge China's claims. For decades, China, which boycotted the tribunal questioning its legality, has been asserting that its emperors discovered the islands hundreds of years ago and have been exercising control over the area throughout history.
But its claims came into conflict with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan as they hardly have Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) provided by the UN Convention on the Law of Seas, which Beijing declined to recognise. However, Beijing has not only remained defiant but also consolidated its claims over the area, building artificial islands backed by military installations fitted with missiles and an airport.
According to observers, Vietnam -- which has been a vocal opponent of China's territorial claims in the SCS -- has emerged as a key partner of the US though it is the same country from where America withdrew its troops in the 1970s, virtually conceding defeat. In her speech, vice president Harris stressed that Washington was not seeking to make countries choose sides.
"Our engagement in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific is not against any one country, nor is it designed to make anyone choose between countries. "Instead, our engagement is about advancing an optimistic vision that we have for our participation and partnership in this region and our economic vision is a critical part of that, she said.
Harris, who is on a weeklong swing through Southeast Asia, declared that "the US stands with our allies and our partners" in the face of threats from China.
The address on Tuesday morning at Singapore's iconic Gardens by the Bay waterfront park offered an opportunity for the former state attorney general and US senator to prove her fluidity with diplomatic and security issues.
Harris' remarks also come during a critical moment for the United States as the Biden administration seeks to further solidify its pivot towards Asia while America's decades-long focus on the Middle East comes to a messy end with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Harris' remarks echoed and expanded upon remarks she delivered at the US Naval Academy graduation in June, where she described a world that is "interconnected, interdependent and fragile".
On Monday, Harris told sailors aboard a US combat ship at the Changi naval base in Singapore that a big part of the history of the 21st century will be written about this very region and that their work defending the region was pivotal.
"It is in our vital interest to stand united with our allies and our partners in Southeast Asia in defense of a free and open Indo-Pacific," she said. She tweeted on Sunday after arriving in Singapore —
Thank you Foreign Minister @VivianBala for welcoming me to Singapore. Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific are critically important to the security and prosperity of the United States. pic.twitter.com/TZjFukDeeA
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) August 22, 2021
Harris on Monday also met with Singapore President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The vice president's office announced a number of agreements out of that meeting aimed at combating cyberthreats, tackling climate change, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and alleviating supply chain issues.
After her speech Tuesday, Harris will hold a roundtable discussion with business leaders on supply chain issues, and then travel to Vietnam, where she'll meet with top officials Wednesday.
President Joe Biden himself has repeatedly emphasised his focus on China as one of America's main adversaries, pledging in a February speech at the state department to confront China's economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China's attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance, a message he echoed again later that month to European allies at the virtual G7 Summit and Munich Security Conference.
And in recent months, his administration has ramped up outreach to the Indo-Pacific region, with defense secretary Lloyd Austin and deputy secretary of state Wendy Austin both visiting the area in the spring and summer. Secretary of state Antony Blinken also held a number of virtual meetings with Southeast Asian officials earlier this month.
The chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, however, complicated that message of support to the region, raising questions about the US commitment to its allies. While Biden said last week that an indefinite engagement would've benefited true strategic competitors China and Russia, China has seized on the images of violence from the evacuation to slam the US for its engagement there.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Monday that the US had done unscrupulous and dishonest things in Afghanistan and called on the nation to help rebuild.
The United States is the root cause and the biggest external factor in the Afghan issue, Wenbin said. It cannot just run away like this, he added.
But Harris, during a joint news conference with Singapore Prime Minister Lee on Monday, said that her presence in the country, combined with the agreements around greater cooperation that the Biden administration has pursued with Indo-Pacific countries, speak volumes in terms of the integrity of the relationships that the United States has around the world on many issues.
Beijing, meanwhile, has hit back at Harris's comment, holding up the Afghan debacle as an example of the United States' "selfish" foreign policy, and accusing Washington of "bullying, hegemonic behaviour".
"The current events in Afghanistan clearly tell us what the rules and order the US speaks of are," China's foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
"The US can wantonly conduct military intervention in a sovereign country and does not need to be responsible for the suffering of the people in that country," Wang said.
"In order to defend 'America first', the US can arbitrarily smear, suppress, coerce and bully other countries without paying any price," he added.
"This is the order the US wants... but who will believe them now?"
The US-China relationship has deteriorated over a range of issues from cybersecurity and tech supremacy to human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Biden has largely continued Trump's hawkish stance on China, describing the Asian power as the pre-eminent challenge to the United States, but has lowered the temperature.
With input from agencies
Via Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/2Nairz4
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