Beijing wasted no time Tuesday taking on the nascent Trump administration over a core strategic interest, warning Washington against taking any action in the volatile South China Sea that could “undermine” stability between China and Washington’s key allies in East Asia.
The foreign ministry statement came a day after White House press secretary Sean Spicer, echoing comments from Mr. Trump’s secretary of state nominee, Rex Tillerson, said the new U.S. administration will aggressively protect American interests and challenge Chinese sovereignty claims in the highly trafficked international waters across the region.
The Tillerson and Spicer remarks appeared to signal a stark shift in tone from the Obama administration, which sharply challenged China’s expansive claims to control the South China Sea but stopped far short of threatening military action to bar Beijing from contested islands and rocky outcroppings it claims are in its exclusive territory.
The U.S., citing the need to protect the principle of freedom on navigation, also tried under Mr. Obama to rally the smaller nations on China’s periphery who have their own competing claims in the sea.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Tuesday that Washington is not part of the cluster of East Asian nations engaged in those fights, and warned the Trump White House to back off.
Lu Kang, a senior official with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, went even further, telling NBC News in a rare on-camera interview that Washington has no right to define who controls what in the South China Sea dispute.
“I do not think [Mr. Spicer] is in a position to say it is international territory,” Mr. Kang said, referring to the numerous shoals and island chains within the South China Sea. “There might be a difference between … claimants over the sovereignty, but that is not for the United States” to decide.
In July The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration rejected China’s territorial claims to several island chains and outcroppings in the South China Sea in a case brought by the Philippines.
Beijing vowed not to ignore the ruling, sparking months of tit-for-tat incidents between American and Chinese fighters and warships around the Spratly Islands, the Scarborough Shoal, the Fiery Cross Reef and other strategic points in the area.
In recent years the Chinese military has reportedly positioned weapons systems on some islands and has constructed a 3,000-foot-long runway at Fiery Cross, situated more than 600 miles south of the Chinese mainland.
Mr. Spicer broadly disavowed China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea during his first official White House press conference on Monday.
“I think the U.S. is going to make sure that we protect our interests there,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country.”
Mr. Kang bristled at the statement Tuesday. When asked what military reaction China would have should Washington and its allies continue to press their interests in the South China Sea, the Chinese Foreign Ministry official replied: “I am not here to prejudge, but we have made our position very clear.”
But regional experts say that, behind the scenes, Beijing is likely to hold its fire as the Trump administration gains its footing. There are other flash points — Washington and Beijing are also likely to face a clash soon over economic policy, with Mr. Trump promising a far more aggressive “America first” policy in the face of huge trade deficits with Beijing.
China “will hold their guns … until they get a sense whether this is going to be Trump’s policy. [Is] this [the beginning] of a negotiation, or is this a big bluff?” said Dean Cheng, a senior China expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “I have no doubt [Beijing] is hedging its bets.”
Mr. Cheng added that China’s strategy of “slowly turning up [the heat] under the pot” in the volatile region is designed to force a “gut-check level decision” by President Trump, but added that the strategy could risk scuttling wider U.S.-Sino cooperation in the process.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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