U.S. Walks a Fine Line on China Message Before Big Defense Forum
Senior U.S. officials headed into a meeting of global defense chiefs in Singapore with a carefully-calibrated message for China on its actions in the disputed South China Sea, urging it to cooperate better with other countries.
The annual Shangri-La Dialogue brings together ministers alongside heads of military, and has become a lightning rod for tensions over China’s military buildup in the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. In recent years, China has reclaimed more than three thousand acres in waters also contested in part by countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
In 2014, the forum descended into acrimony after then-U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called China’s actions destabilizing, prompting Lieutenant General Wang Guanzhong to deviate from his scripted remarks the next day to describe Hagel’s words as “full of hegemony, full of words of threat and intimidation.”
Last year, current Defense Secretary Ash Carter called out China on its land reclamation, noting it has “gone much further and much faster than any other” in building up the area.
Still, during a joint briefing on Friday with Singapore’s Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, and ahead of his speech to this year’s forum on Saturday, Carter said “the more everyone works together, the better.”
MORE....
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-03/u-s-walks-a-fine-line-on-china-message-before-big-defense-forum