The foreign ministers of the US, Japan, Australia and India yesterday expressed “serious concern” over the situation in the South China Sea in a veiled rebuke to Beijing.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) issued a joint statement calling for a “free and open” Pacific after talks in Tokyo.
The statement did not name China directly, but referenced a series of confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We are seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China seas and reiterate our strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,” the communique said.
“We continue to express our serious concern about the militarization of disputed features, and coercive and intimidating maneuvers in the South China Sea,” it added.
The group also condemned North Korea’s “destabilizing” missile launches.
The words prompted ire from Beijing, which accused the four nations of “creating tension, inciting confrontation and containing the development of other countries.”
Blinken is on a tour of the Asia-Pacific region aimed at reinforcing regional cooperation in the face of Beijing’s growing assertiveness and its deepening ties with Russia.
The Quad talks in Tokyo, the first since September last year, included Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoko Kamikawa, Indian Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢).
Their statement was noticeably more muted than a communique issued after talks on Sunday between Blinken, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and their Japanese counterparts.
Without India and Australia present, the two nations issued scathing verbal attacks that, unlike the Quad statement, named and criticized not only China, but also Russia.
Washington and Tokyo said China’s “foreign policy seeks to reshape the international order for its own benefit at the expense of others.”
They also slammed Russia’s “growing and provocative strategic military cooperation” with China.
Criticism of Moscow by the Quad is awkward for India, which relies heavily on Russian arms supplies. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.
Beijing yesterday warned Japan and the US to “stop creating imaginary enemies,” saying their bilateral statement “maliciously attacks China’s foreign policy.”
The Philippines — Blinken and Austin’s next stop — is locked in a longstanding territorial row with Beijing over parts of the South China Sea. Violent clashes in the area have sparked concern that Manila’s ally Washington could be drawn into a conflict as Beijing steps up efforts to push its claims to almost the entire waterway, through which trillions of dollars of trade passes annually.
“We are charting a course for a more secure and open Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean region by bolstering maritime security and domain awareness,” Blinken told reporters after the talks yesterday.
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