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US, China tension grows

Daniel Ten Kate

Published: June 4, 2013 - 3:00AM

China has dismissed calls for arbitration to resolve disputes in Asian waters vital to world trade after the US and Japan

vowed to resist attempts to seize contested territory by force.

Qi Jianguo, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, told a forum in Singapore that Chinese

patrols in disputed waters off its coasts were ''totally legitimate''. He spoke after Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the

US stood ''firmly against any coercive attempts to alter the status quo'' in the seas.

The tension adds to disagreements over cyber-espionage, Iran's weapons program and Syria's civil war that may be

discussed when US President Barack Obama meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping in California on June 7.

''China does seem to be in certain instances changing the status quo in its favour,'' said Bonnie Glaser, a China specialist

at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ''If it's doing so through economic pressure and

coercion and the use of government paramilitary vessels, the US just doesn't have a good toolbox to use and try to

respond to it.''

Over the past year, China has taken effective control of the Scarborough Shoal near the Philippines and increased

incursions into Japanese waters.

General Qi said that a maritime dispute with the Philippines could be solved through ''open-minded channels'' instead of

arbitration. A United Nations-backed panel set up after the Philippines brought the case to the UN in January may rule

next month whether it has jurisdiction, Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said on April 26.

''We don't see any necessity to resort to an international tribunal,'' General Qi told the Shangri-La Dialogue security

forum on Monday.

Philippines Defence Minister Voltaire Gazmin, who sat on the same panel as General Qi, said he hoped the UN

arbitration panel would not hurt trade ties with China and would encourage Mr Xi's government to ''desist from

undertaking unlawful acts that violate our territorial rights''.

Two Chinese vessels last week were monitoring a separate shoal in the nearby Spratly islands that is occupied by the

Philippines.

Japan boosted defence spending for the first time in 11 years to defend its territory in an ''increasingly severe securityenvironment'', Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera told the forum on Saturday.

He said Japan, while committed to pacifism, might create a National Security Council and wants to establish a regional

body at the ''earliest possible timing'' to prevent crises over incidents at sea.

Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung warned in a speech opening the Singapore forum that miscalculations might

disrupt the estimated two-thirds of global trade that moves through the South China Sea as countries compete for fish, oil

and gas.

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation estimates the South China Sea may hold about five times more

undiscovered natural gas than the country's current proved reserves, according to the US Energy Information

Administration.

''We don't want miscalculations and misunderstandings and misinterpretations, and the only way you do that is you talk to

each other,'' Mr Hagel said in response to a question from a Chinese delegate at the event.

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Bloomberg

This story was found at: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/us-china-tension-grows-20130603-2nm1r.html