AsPac defense gab hits impassé over sea row

The two military chiefs have been attending a meeting of defense ministers from the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and regional partners including the United States, China and Russian Federation.

The USA official also said while it was a decision by the ASEAN, the U.S. thinks not releasing a statement is better compared to releasing one that avoids references to the militarization and reclamation activities of China in the South China Sea.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said he would visit an American aircraft carrier in the South China Sea on Thursday as US-Chinese tensions over the waterway escalate. “It reflects the divide China’s reclamation and militarization in the South China Sea has caused in the region”.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing that Washington’s call for Beijing to stop militarizing the South China Sea while sending warships there itself was “an attempt to deprive China of its self-defense right as a sovereign state”. “The South China Sea is not – and will not – be an exception”, he added.

Beijing had made clear as early as February that it didn’t want the South China Sea discussed at the meeting, a second senior USA defense official said earlier in the week. But tensions surrounding gas fields in the East China Sea stalled negotiations.

It was the first time a high-ranking South Korean official referred to the South China Sea dispute while the top defense officials of both the USA and China sat together.

The commander of the United States Pacific Command received the statement of the Chinese official during his visit to the country.

It came a week after the USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, challenged territorial limits around one of China’s man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan had overlapping claims over a number of islands of the SCS and strongly contest China’s claims of sovereignty over nearly all of the SCS.

As the Roosevelt sailed about 175 miles south of the Spratlys, Mr Carter said his visit was a “symbol” that “signifies the stabilising presence that the United States has had in this part of the world for decades”.

In late 2014, China and Australia agreed to increase their already close military relations, following an upgraded bilateral relationship and a breakthrough in free trade agreement talks.

Carter said he has accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jingping to visit that nation, and looks forward to making the trip in the spring.

ASEAN has also led useful and constructive discussions in the past couple of years on the regional security architecture, he said.