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US senator blasts
Beijingˇ¦s behavior in South China Sea
AFP, WASHINGTON
A US senator on Monday urged condemnation of Chinaˇ¦s behavior in maritime rifts
with its neighbors, saying Washington has been too weak-kneed as tensions rise
in the South China Sea.
Jim Webb, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia,
introduced a bill that would denounce China for the use of force and urge it to
seek a peaceful resolution to disputes.
China has a host of territorial disputes with its neighbors and incidents at sea
have been on the rise. Vietnam on Monday carried out live-fire drills in the
South China Sea in a show of force.
ˇ§I think we in our government have taken too weak of a position on this,ˇ¨ Webb,
a member of US President Barack Obamaˇ¦s Democratic Party from Virginia, said at
the Council on Foreign Relations.
ˇ§When we say the United States government doesnˇ¦t have a position on sovereignty
issues, not taking a position is taking a position,ˇ¨ Webb said.
The bill introduced by Webb and Senator James Inhofe, the subcommitteeˇ¦s top
Republican, ˇ§condemns the use of forceˇ¨ by China and affirms that the US
military will ˇ§assert and defend freedom of navigation rightsˇ¨ in the South
China Sea.
Webb did not call for an explicit stand on territorial disputes, but said that
the US needed to send ˇ§a clear signalˇ¨ and to work multilaterally for a
solution.
The US generally does not take positions on territorial disputes in which it is
not directly involved.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in remarks made in July last year
in Vietnam, said that the US had a national interest in freedom of navigation,
but that it did not take a position on the South China Sea disputes.
China and Vietnam each claim the strategic Paracel Islands and the Spratly
archipelago.
Tensions have also risen this year between China and the Philippines, another
claimant to the Spratlys, which said on Monday that it would from now on refer
to the South China Sea as the ˇ§West Philippine Sea.ˇ¨
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