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The US is slamming the Communist Chinese government for expanding “unlawful claims” in the South China Sea, while the world is distracted by the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
The State Department responded to last week’s collision of a Chinese coast guard ship and a Vietnamese fishing vessel near the disputed Paracel Islands, the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday.
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the US was “seriously concerned” by reports of the incident, which occurred around midnight Thursday, when eight Vietnamese crew members fell overboard as their vessel sank.
The Chinese vessel retrieved them and turned them over to Vietnamese authorities, claiming the Vietnamese boat rammed the Chinese vessel before sinking.
“This incident is the latest in a long string of PRC actions to assert unlawful maritime claims and disadvantage its Southeast Asian neighbors in the South China Sea,” Ortagus said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
She said the Chinese Communist Party should “remain focused on supporting international efforts to combat the global pandemic and to stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea.”
The statement also pointed out that, since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, Beijing has announced new research stations on its military bases at Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef, and landed special military aircraft on Fiery Cross Reef.
The People’s Liberation Army Navy exerts control over the two reefs and calls them Yongshu and Zhubi, respectively, but other Southeast Asian nations dispute China’s ownership of the reefs.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang spoke with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc following the maritime incident and called for cooperation to curb the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
CCP Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Tuesday that the US regularly sent fighter jets to fly over the South China Sea in violation of China’s maritime rights, and called on Washington not to link maritime disputes with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zhao had to walk back claims that the US Army brought COVID-19 to the Chinese city of Wuhan in a press conference Tuesday, saying the accusation had been raised on his “personal Twitter account” and that it was in response to American “stigmatization of China.” Chinese ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai derided Zhao publicly for the remark in a March interview with Axios.
A think tank affiliated with Peking University released a report Friday claiming nearly 600 Vietnamese fishing boats had entered waters China claims it controls in the month of March.
The Chinese Communist Party has been filling in reefs to create islands that house military and communication facilities and has thumbed its nose at US protests, saying America has no business interfering in Chinese affairs in the South China Sea.
