The United States Vice-President Joe Biden has criticised Beijing's increasingly assertive policies in the South China Sea, saying they are adding to tensions and the potential for conflict in the region. Biden told a graduation ceremony at a naval academy in Maryland that freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes were being tested by Chinese actions in the disputed waters, the source of territorial disputes among several countries, and that the United States' role was to keep the peace. Biden is the most senior American official to voice disquiet over Beijing's construction of artificial islands in disputed areas of the South China Sea since the row over a US reconnaissance flight in the region last week. "They're building airstrips, the placing of oil rigs, the imposition of unilateral bans on fishing in disputed territories, the declaration of air-defence zones, the reclamation of land, which other countries are doing, but not nearly on the massive scale the Chinese are doing," Biden said. "Tensions run high. As I speak, they run high, but you will be there to keep the peace," he told the naval cadets. Biden also said that as part of the pivot in US foreign policy towards the Asia-Pacific there would be a significant shift of its military forces into the region. "That's why 60 per cent of the United States naval forces will be stationed in the Asia Pacific by 2020," he said. The PLA navy last week warned a US surveillance aircraft to stay away from artificial islands China is building in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The area is claimed by several nations including the Philippines and Vietnam. The American pilots responded to a Chinese radio operator by saying they were flying through international air space. A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing, Hong Lei , said on Friday that the government was strongly dissatisfied over the US Air Force's irresponsible and dangerous move, and urged the United States to abide by the international laws and refrain from taking any risky and provocative actions. The PLA also sent a fleet of strategic bombers on a training flight south of Okinawa in Japan as part of military exercises in the western Pacific, but denied it had any connection to the disputes in the South China Sea. Professor Su Hao, an expert at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, said the US had become increasingly vocal about disputes in the South China Sea because it faced a renewed urgency to maintain the existing regional order in Asia. The US had traditionally enjoyed the leading role in the western Pacific, but that dominance was being eroded as Beijing tried to forge closer economic ties with Asia and Europe, Su said.
