Tue 12July 2022:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged China to abide by international law and stop engaging in “provocative behavior” in the busy waterway. He also stated that Washington will defend treaty partner the Philippines if its forces are attacked in the South China Sea.
Blinken made the remarks on Monday, the sixth anniversary of an international tribunal’s decision invalidating China’s sweeping claims to the South China Sea, a route for approximately $3 trillion in annual shipborne trade.
“We re-affirm that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces … would invoke U.S. mutual defence commitments,” Blinken said in a statement, referring to the provisions of a mutual defence treaty between the allies dating from 1951.
“We call again on the People’s Republic of China to abide by its obligations under international law and cease its provocative behaviour,” he added.
The declaration was made on the same day that Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, advised ASEAN members to avoid being treated like “chess pieces” by major powers during a meeting in the Indonesian capital.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have had overlapping claims in the busy waterway, which is believed to be rich in undersea gas and oil deposits and where an estimated $5 trillion-worth of trade and goods are shipped through each year.
China is at odds with some of the other members of the group because it claims practically the entire South China Sea based on what it claims are historical maps, a claim that is against international law.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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