Carter to summit, nations fret over China

Beijing to pressure US on maritime issues: paper Tense game in Asia Pacific

WASHINGTON, May 31, (Agencies): US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will depart Tuesday for an Asian security summit in Singapore, where Beijing’s military expansion across the South China Sea likely will once again dominate discussions.

Regional neighbors are fretting over what they see as China’s expansionism as it rushes to exert sovereignty over the waterway, a major global shipping route believed to be home to large oil and gas reserves.

China is using dredgers and other tools to convert low-lying ocean features and sandy blips into military bases.

A Pentagon report this month said China has added more than 3,200 acres (1,300 hectares) of land to the seven features it occupies in the Spratly Islands archipelago.

The so-called Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual meeting in Singapore, will see defense ministers, military chiefs and defense experts from the AsiaPacific region and beyond discuss regional security issues.

Aside from the South China Sea, delegates are expected to focus on the growing threat of Islamic terrorism in the region and North Korea’s nuclear program.

Since becoming President Barack Obama’s fourth Pentagon chief in February 2015, Carter has taken a forceful tone on Beijing’s South China Sea construction.

He criticized the drive at last year’s Shangri-La meeting and on Friday, Carter said China risks creating a “Great Wall of self-isolation.”

“Countries across the region — allies, partners and the unaligned — are voicing concerns publicly and privately at the highest levels,” Carter said.

The United States has conducted several “freedom of navigation” operations where it pointedly ignores China’s claims of sovereign exclusion zones around the islands by closely flying or sailing past.

Carter’s trip will see him first visit an Army base in Arizona.

He had also considered meeting his Japanese counterpart Gen Nakatani during a visit to Japan, but the two decided to meet in Singapore instead, a US defense official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The official said the meeting would have been too politically sensitive, given the furor surrounding the arrest of a former US Marine on Okinawa in connection to the death of a 20-yearold woman who had been missing since late April.

A series of crimes including rapes, assaults and hit-and-run accidents by US military personnel, dependents and civilians have long sparked local protests on the crowded island.

Carter and Obama were quick to condemn the crime and offer “regret.”

While in Singapore, Carter will be joined by senior US military leaders, including Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson and the commander of US Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris.

Meanwhile, China will “pressure” the United States on maritime issues at key talks in Beijing next week because of Chinese concerns over the increased US military presence in the disputed South China Sea, a major state-run newspaper said on Tuesday.

China has been angered by what it

views as provocative US military patrols close to islands China controls in the South China Sea. Washington says the patrols are to protect freedom of navigation in the region.

“Beijing will pressure Washington over maritime issues during the upcoming Strategic and Economic Dialogue, as the United States’ increasing military presence in the South China Sea is among China’s major concerns,” the official China Daily said, citing unidentified officials.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in shipborne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.

Earlier this month Beijing demanded an end to US surveillance near China after two of its fighter jets carried

out what the Pentagon said was an “unsafe” intercept of a US military reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea.

In related news top US diplomat John Kerry will travel to Beijing for talks on a range of issues as part of a trip that will also take him to Mongolia and France, the State Department said Monday.

The June 5-7 visit comes at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over the Asian giant’s military expansion in the South China Sea.

The United States disputes China’s sovereignty in the region and has conducted several “freedom of navigation” operations in which it deliberately sails or flies close to the islands, attracting the ire of Beijing.