South China Sea- US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to Join Aircraft Car...

http://www.newsbharati.com/ South China Sea- US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to Join Aircraft Carrier on SCS Patrol



Even though China has serious concerns about American patrols, Mr. Carter is doubling down on the signals he intends to send while he is in the region by visiting the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt on Thursday. The warship’s presence in the South China Sea is “a symbol of our commitment to the rebalance” to the Asia-Pacific region, Mr. Carter said, referring to the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy of increasing U.S. engagement with Asian countries.



But the confrontation demonstrated how Asean summits are “increasingly being held hostage to tensions between China and the U.S.,” said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore. Asean meetings were “outliving their usefulness because of the increasing tensions between the great powers.”



China’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday said Beijing “regretted” the failure to reach a common position at the Malaysia talks, blaming “some particular countries from outside the region.” The Chinese defense minister, Gen. Chang Wanquan, said the issue of freedom of navigation “should not be hyped or even become an excuse for provocation,” according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.

Sensitivity over the South China Sea disputes is at a high, with a U.S. warship having last week sailed close to an artificial Chinese islet in the disputed Spratly Islands to assert the right to freedom of navigation there. Beijing condemned the move as provocative.

 “Freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce are not new concepts,” Mr. Carter said. “They are not theoretical or aspirational goals.”

The Theodore Roosevelt isn’t expected to sail within 12 nautical miles of any of the disputed islands, as the destroyer USS Lassen did last week, in a direct challenge to Chinese claims there.

At the same time, military exchanges, including one in which Chinese ships are exercising with the U.S. are still occurring, and Mr. Carter accepted an invitation to travel to Beijing this spring.

The Chinese government also reacted angrily to a ruling last week by a United Nations-backed tribunal in the Netherlands that it has jurisdiction over a case brought by the Philippines against Beijing seeking to have China’s actions in the South China Sea ruled unlawful. China has refused to take part in the arbitration process.



Joint declarations used to be a formality at the closure of Asean summits, but disagreements over how to handle the South China Sea disputes, which involve China and Asean members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, have lately made this a contentious process.

Even so,Asean has failed to issue a joint statement only once before, when a 2012 Asean summit in Cambodia ended in acrimony over the group’s conflicted approach to the South China Sea.



“It’s 2012 all over again,” said Mr. Storey, referring to this week’s summit. “The dynamic between the U.S. and China now dominates the dispute. The Asean conflict-management process is increasingly irrelevant to events on the water.” Statements by China and Asean members agreeing to reduce tensions were becoming “divorced from reality,” he said, with China building islets to exercise control over the South China Sea despite the objections of rival claimants.

U.S. officials in Kuala Lumpur said there had been no agreement on language that included even broad references to the South China Sea.

The U.S. official said the lack of a unifying statement “reflects the divide China’s reclamation and militarization in the South China Sea has caused in the region.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ENLARGE

Mr. Hishammuddin highlighted the dilemma Asean faces: He said Malaysia supports the freedom of navigation operations being conducted by the U.S., but lamented that the “the geopolitical considerations of the major powers” – namely China and the U.S.—were raising the stakes in the South China Sea.

High-level defense talks crumbled over growing territorial disputes in the South China Sea, as the U.S. sought to show strength and assert its role as a counterweight to China.

“We couldn’t reach a consensus,” said Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein at the conclusion of the Asean Defense Ministers Meeting Plus, which brings together 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and eight other countries, including China and the U.S.