South China Sea tensions set to overshadow annual China-US strategic and economic dialogue
Analysts expect high-level talks to continue under next US president
The fraught relationship between China and the United States will be put to another test soon when top officials meet in Beijing early next month amid heightened tensions in the South China Sea.
While the world’s two largest economies have a host of tough bilateral and global issues to address, China’s escalating maritime disputes with its neighbours, which have plunged regional diplomacy into stormy waters, look set to overshadow the annual strategic and economic dialogue scheduled to start on Monday.
The tensions associated with power transition in the international system are unlikely to go away easily
Just weeks ahead of a contentious international court ruling on China’s expansive claims, the rivalry between Beijing and Washington is on full display, with both sides indulging in the occasional sabre-rattling and antagonistic diplomacy.
A heated spat broke out in mid-May over a close encounter between Chinese fighter jets and a US military reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea, which the Pentagon described as “an unsafe intercept”.
That followed Beijing’s denunciation of a US guided missile destroyer’s passage within 12 nautical miles of Fiery Cross Reef, China’s largest man-made island in the disputed waters in one of the world’s busiest trade routes, in a freedom of navigation operation earlier in the month.