US officials call China’s actions in the South China Sea unsafe and increasing

Unlawful maritime provocations by Beijing are ‘growing by orders of magnitude’, says assistant defence secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs

Analysts from Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines at forum state concerns about China’s efforts in region and welcome more of a US response

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Ely Ratner, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs, says provocative engagement by China in the South China Sea “looks like a pattern, and a policy”. Photo: Centre for a New American Security

Robert Delaneyin WashingtonandMark Magnierin New York

Published: 7:00am, 27 Jul 2022

US officials denounced Beijing on Tuesday for increasing confrontations with other countries in the South China Sea, actions that a State Department official said required “multilateral condemnation”.

“There is a clear and upwards trend of [People’s Republic of China] provocations against South China Sea claimants and other states lawfully operating in the region,” Jung Pak of the department’s bureau of East Asia and Pacific affairs, said in a forum hosted by Washington think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

“Rallying multilateral condemnations of unlawful PRC maritime claims, enhancing Asean maritime domain awareness … sanctioning PRC entities that jeopardise peace and security and conducting regular multilateral military exercises have bolstered regional confidence in US resolve,” she added, using the acronym for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs, said in the event’s keynote address that the Pentagon was working to declassify its record of occurrences so the public could judge.

Jung Pak of the US State Department’s bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs speaks at a forum hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Tuesday. Image: CSIS

“When you look at the data of unsafe PLA intercepts, it looks like this: it is an absolute ramp upwards starting about five years ago, and growing by orders of magnitude over the years to the extent now that looks like a pattern, and a policy, and not just a decision by an individual pilot.”

Asked about the remarks by Pak and Ratner, Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said China and Asean members were “working actively to advance the consultations on a code of conduct in the South China Sea”.