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A US Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II touches down at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Photo: Staff Sg. Benjamin W. Stratton, US Air Force

China and United States ramp up sabre rattling ahead of South China Sea court ruling

A war of words regarding the South China Sea disputes is escalating in the run-up to a key international court ruling.

Driven by intense competition for influence in the Asia-Pacific region – the likes of which analysts say has rarely been seen in the past – China and the United States are ratcheting up the rhetoric against each other while seeking to shore up the support of their allies.

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A senior US diplomat warned on Thursday that Beijing risked conflict, isolation and “terrible” damage to its reputation if it ignored an impending ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague over a case the Philippines has brought against China.

“China has a decision to make,” US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “[If] it ignores the decision ... it risks doing terrible damage to its reputation, further alienating countries in the region and pushing them even closer to the US.”

His remarks came after new legislation was introduced by a group of US senators to strengthen security assistance to Washington’s Southeast Asia allies and increase US naval patrols near the contested islands, the Associated Press reported.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying denounced the legislation and said Washington strongly refuted the US criticism.

She accused Washington of “exaggerating deliberately the China threat” at the expense of US taxpayers.

“With the US national debt exceeding US$19 trillion, have those in the US won support from taxpayers when they go to all lengths to push for the so-called freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea?” she asked.

China has overlapping claims with four out of 10 Associate of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), including Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia.

Beijing has rejected the court’s authority. But as pressure mounts ahead of a ruling widely expected to go against it, Beijing has intensified its efforts to seek allies in Asia, Europe and Africa.

The move is a departure from its usual stance that the maritime disputes should be a bilateral issue between parties directly concerned.

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State media, including Xinhua, claimed at least a dozen nations, mostly not rival claimants, had voiced support for China’s stance on the dispute, including Russia, India, Pakistan, Poland, Belarus and rival claimant Brunei.

The overseas edition of the People’s Daily, a Communist Party mouthpiece, published a commentary on Thursday accusing the US of fueling the tensions and using the international court ruling as a pretext to contain China.

It admitted that Beijing’s self-claimed allies might not see eye to eye with China on the disputes. “Those nations do not necessarily support China’s sovereignty and territorial claims in the South China Sea completely. They mainly support China’s approach of handling differences or disputes and are against the abuse of arbitration process by the Philippines,” it said.

Bonnie Glaser, an expert from Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said tensions looked set to remain high in the lead-up to the ruling and criticised China for its rejection of the court’s jurisdiction, which has been supported by the US and the EU.

“[Beijing] thought that its growing economic power could persuade its neighbours to accept Chinese dominance of maritime areas, and more generally to accommodate Chinese ‘core interests’. This has proven to be wrong,” she said.

Wrapping up an annual diplomatic consultation with Asean in Singapore on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin shrugged off criticism that China was trying to split Asean by rallying support from Cambodia, Laos and Brunei.

He insisted that territorial disputes were “not an issue between China and Asean as a whole”.

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