US exec in Manila for bilateral talks

MANILA, Philippines - US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel is in Manila for bilateral meetings with his counterparts in the government, the US embassy announced yesterday.

Russel, who described China’s activities in the South China Sea as “wholesale reclamation and source of clear anxiety and instability in the region,” came with Assistant Secretary for Defense David Shear.

He will fly today to Kuala Lumpur, then Bangkok and Phnom Penh and return to Washington on Jan. 28.

In a press conference at the New York Foreign Press Center last Sept. 26, Russel said the US had spoken and would continue to speak to each of the claimants, particularly the Chinese, about Washington’s concerns over reclamation work “that means digging up the bottom of the sea, creating landfill to build out what are essentially rocks or shoals into a large enough territory to hold facilities of various types.”

He said “wholesale reclamation is an example of unilateral action that changes the status quo.”

The State Department official said the South China Sea is not a bilateral issue between China and the US. He said Washington takes no position on the merits of sovereignty claims by China or other claimants to particular land features in the disputed waters.

However, Russel said the US holds the South China Sea issue as an important area of conversation in its bilateral talks with China and in the appropriate regional fora, such as the ASEAN context.