US general: Xi broke promise to Obama on South China Sea
WASHINGTON : The US military's top general said on Wednesday Chinese President Xi Jinping reneged on promises not to militarise the South China Sea and called for "collective action" to hold Beijing responsible.
General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was not calling for military action but stressed there was a need to enforce international laws.
"The fall of 2016, President Xi Jinping promised (then) president Obama that they would not militarise the islands.
"So what we see today are 10,000-foot runways, ammunition storage facilities, routine deployment of missile defence capabilities, aviation capabilities, and so forth," he said in a talk on US security and defence at the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington.
"So clearly they have walked away from that commitment. The South China Sea is in my judgement not a pile of rocks," he continued, referring to the series of reefs and outcrops that have been claimed as territory by China, reclaimed and expanded to accommodate military forces and large aircraft.
"What is at stake in the South China Sea and elsewhere where there are territorial claims is the rule of law, international laws, norms and standards.
"When we ignore actions that are not in compliance with international rules, norms and standards, we have just set a new standard."
Gen Dunford went on and said: "I'm not suggesting a military response. What needs to happen ... is coherent collective action to those who violate international norms and standards.
"They need to be held accountable in some way so that future violations are deterred."
Washington has been frustrated by an inability to stall China's aggressive military colonisation of the South China Sea, in the face of conflicting territorial claims by Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The US has sent navy vessels through the areas claimed by China as "international freedom of navigation operations", but otherwise has found responding difficult.
Gen Dunford acknowledged that building on the Chinese-claimed reefs had slowed.
However, he said: "I assume that's because the islands have now been developed to the point where they provide the military capability that the Chinese required them to have."- AFP
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