‘Peace in South China Sea a US national interest’

WASHINGTON – The US has a national interest in the maintenance of peace and stability in the South China Sea and has consistently and frequently raised with China its concerns over large-scale Chinese sea reclamations, the US State Department said.

“The United States continues to take additional concrete steps to support peace and stability in the South China Sea and we are frank in expressing our concerns about problematic behavior,” the department’s press office director Jeff Rathke said.

He confirmed a letter was received by the State Department on Thursday from leading US senators regarding China’s land reclamation activities and a response to it was being prepared. 

Asked at a press conference if he agreed with the letter’s claim that China has been using non-military methods of coercion to enforce its disputed claims in the South China Sea, he said “that might not be the word we would use, but we’ve said that these actions are destabilizing.”

Republican Sens. John McCain and Bob Corker and Democrats Jack Reed and Bob Menendez in their letter said a formal US strategy was needed to halt land reclamation.

They said China’s land reclamation and construction in the South China Sea’s Spratly archipelago gave it the potential to expand its military reach and was “a direct challenge, not only to the interests of the United States and the region, but to the entire international community.” 

“While other states have built on existing land masses, China is changing the size, structure and physical attributes of land features themselves,” the letter said. “This is a qualitative change that appears designed to alter the status quo in the South China Sea.”