China accuses US and Japan of ‘provocative actions’
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Singapore
June 1, 2014
A top Chinese general on Sunday accused the US and Japan of teaming up to stage “provocative actions” against China, as escalating maritime tensions spilled into an Asian regional defence forum.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Wang Guanzhong, deputy chief of the Chinese general staff, lambasted Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Chuck Hagel, US defence secretary, for telling the forum of Asian defence ministers that China was using intimidation to assert its territorial claims.
“The speeches by Mr Abe and Mr Hagel gave me the impression that they co-ordinated with each other, they supported each other, they encouraged each other and they took the advantage of speaking first . . . and staged provocative actions and challenges against China,” said Gen Wang.
Mr Hagel on Saturday said China was undermining its claims that the South China Sea was a “sea of peace, friendship and co-operation” by using coercive tactics, adding the US would “not look the other way when fundamental principles of the international order are being challenged”.
On Friday, Mr Abe said Japan would give more support to southeast Asian nations that are facing Chinese pressure.
In the face of mounting efforts by the US and Japan to shore up or build new security relationships in Asia, Gen Wang said China opposed both the practice of building military alliances and “attempts by any country to dominate regional affairs”. In a jab at Japan’s wartime history, Gen Wang said China would “never allow fascism . . . to stake a comeback”.
The Shangri-La Dialogue has become one of the key defence events in Asia, particularly as China becomes more willing to voice its views at the forum. Gen Wang said he had not intended to deliver a critical speech, but felt compelled to respond to Mr Hagel whose speech was “full of hegemony”.
This year’s event became more heated because of the escalating disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea. China is embroiled in maritime disputes around the region, including with Manila and Tokyo.
Scores of Chinese and Vietnamese ships are also involved in a stand-off near the disputed Paracel Islands after China started drilling for oil there in early May.
China’s neighbours are concerned about the “nine-dash line”, a demarcation on Chinese maps that encloses much of the South China Sea, suggesting that Beijing lays claim to most of the resource-rich waters.
Asked to clarify the “nine-dash line”, Gen Wang said that while China respected the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), the law did not apply retroactively – a view that is not commonly accepted. He stressed that China discovered many of the islands in the Paracels and Spratly Islands, another disputed group closer to the Philippines, more than 2,000 years ago during the Han dynasty.
Gen Wang said China did not take provocative actions, but was being forced to respond to such actions from other countries. But when asked what Vietnam had done to trigger the decision to move the oil rig to disputed waters, sparking the worst crisis in China-Vietnam relations in years, the general did not respond.
While Shangri-La is designed to tackle a range of Asia-Pacific security issues, the focus has, in recent years, shifted squarely to China, with most of the participants this year asking China to explain its policies and actions.
Some experts questioned whether a new cold war was emerging in Asia. Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s deputy defence secretary, took exception to comments by Mr Hagel that the US was the only power that could lead in the Asia-Pacific region. “Why does the US have to lead? To lead what?”
