A Chinese official said the US “must choose the right course in its relations with China by abandoning its cold war mentality and managing differences between the two countries.”
The US government’s strategy toward China has also “pushed the two powers into confrontation, threatening turmoil for other nations,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a Yahoo News report, said.
In an online seminar, Wang accused Washington of “disrupting peace in the Taiwan Strait, and for deciding the two countries were rivals.”
“The current atmosphere of China-US relations is very abnormal, and the extreme anxiety of the US is completely unnecessary,” Wang, in the Yahoo report, said, adding that “If the US blindly defines China-US relations in terms of great power competition and takes a ‘you lose, I win’ approach to policy, it will only push China and the US into confrontation and conflict, and push the world into division and turmoil.”
The seminar was held reportedly by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and attended by a number of veterans of China-US affairs, including Henry Kissinger.
Kissinger reportedly said both China and the US “need to launch dialogue and understand each other’s core concerns to avoid their confrontation from becoming a direct war.”
The Philippine government on Tuesday meanwhile said it summoned a senior Chinese Embassy official back in April to protest the harassment of a Philippine research in the West Philippine Sea, and rejected a unilateral fishing ban declared by Beijing in waters where the Philippines exercises sovereign rights and jurisdiction.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) issued the statement after Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) reported that Chinese Coast Guard and militia, in three months, harassed Filipino vessels in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea.
The DFA said the presence of the Chinese coast guard vessels around Reed Bank was not consistent with innocent passage and “are clear violations of Philippine maritime jurisdiction where only the Philippine government has the mandate of enforcement.”
“The detailed reports of these activities are being reviewed for the filing of appropriate diplomatic action,” the department said.
Only the Philippine Coast Guard has “enforcement jurisdiction over these waters,” the DFA said.
The Chinese Embassy in Manila has not yet issued a statement on the matter.
“The Department summoned a senior official of the Chinese Embassy in Manila to protest the harassment by CCG on RV Legend, which had been conducting an authorized marine scientific research (MSR) activity, with Philippine scientists on board,” the DFA said.
It did not provide further details but said the activity was led by the University of the Philippines-National Institute of Geological Sciences.
In a May 26 report, the AMTI said RV Legend was shadowed by Chinese Coast Guard vessel 5203 at a distance of two to three nautical miles while conducting research about 60 nautical miles northwest of Luzon on March 24.
Taipei responded on March 25 by dispatching its own coast guard vessel from Taiwan-occupied Pratas Island.
AMTI said Taiwan’s 5001 maneuvered to keep the Chinese vessel away from RV Legend for the next two days, with the vessels “in some instances coming within 1,000 meters of each other.”
Apart from this, AMTI reported two separate incidents of CCG vessels challenging marine research and hydrocarbon exploration activities within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea.
The DFA confirmed the “presence of foreign coast guard vessels” around Reed Bank and in the vicinity of the Philippine-approved activities around Service Contracts No. 75 and 72.
