The US yesterday called on rivals in the disputed South China Sea to back up territorial claims with legal evidence — a challenge to China’s declaration of sovereignty over vast stretches of the region.
“We also call on all parties to clarify their claims in the South China Sea in terms consistent with customary international law,” US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at Asia’s largest security conference.
“Claims to maritime space in the South China Sea should be derived solely from legitimate claims to land features,” she said.
The South China Sea row has taken center stage at this week’s meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum on the Indonesian island of Bali, where the US, China and Southeast Asian nations have discussed the future of the potentially resource-rich region.
Taiwan, China and four ASEAN members — the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam — all claim territory in the South China Sea, while Washington has irritated Beijing by declaring it also has a national interest at stake in ensuring freedom of navigation and trade.
China’s claim is the biggest and Beijing says it has had indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea since ancient times.
Beijing on Thursday agreed to take preliminary steps with its Southeast Asian neighbors to establish a “code of conduct” for the South China Sea, a step Clinton said could ease tensions that have rattled the region as disputes between China, Vietnam and the Philippines heat up.
However, she indicated yesterday that the US would push for more clarity on the subject, suggesting that all nations involved should delineate their claims according to the 1982 international Law of the Sea.
The Philippines also said China’s claims had no validity under international law.
US officials said many of the national claims to territory in the region were exaggerated and that many nations had also preferred to legitimize claims based on historical precedent rather than land features.
Clinton said the US had no claim to the South China Sea and took no position on the relative merits of competing claims.
However, she said the US, as a maritime nation, did have an interest in ensuring that disputes were resolved peacefully and called on all countries involved to avoid exacerbating the situation.
Clinton said the recent surge in tensions over the South China Sea threatened regional peace, while warning against using force to solve the dispute.
“The United States is concerned that recent incidents in the South China Sea threaten the peace and stability on which the remarkable progress of the Asia Pacific region has been built,” Clinton said. “They should exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes,” she said.
A senior US official said Clinton’s move to invoke the Law of the Sea to assess claims could require many countries to dig for solid evidence to back up their territorial assertions.
The US itself has signed, but not ratified, the Law of the Sea.
However regional claimants do belong to the convention, although there remains no clear international procedure for adjudicating rival claims.
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
DETERRENCE: Along with US$500 million in military aid and up to US$2 billion in loans and loan guarantees, the bill would allocate US$400 million to countering PRC influence The US House of Representatives on Friday approved an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2025 that includes US$500 million in military aid for Taiwan. The legislation, which authorizes funding for the US Department of State, US foreign operations and related programs for next year, passed 212-200 in the Republican-led House. The bill stipulates that the US would provide no less than US$500 million in foreign military financing for Taiwan to enhance deterrence across the Taiwan Strait, and offer Taipei up to US$2 billion in loans and loan guarantees for the same purpose. The funding would be made available under the US’ Foreign Military