US senator urges action on South China Sea dispute

WASHINGTON – The United States needs to condemn China’s use of force and push for multilateral negotiations to resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea that have raised tensions in the region, a prominent senator said Monday.

Vietnam fired live artillery rounds Monday off its central coast in naval drills staged after alleging that Chinese boats disrupted oil and gas exploration. A similar dispute flared last week between China and the Philippines.

Vietnam said it would welcome foreign involvement to keep the peace, in an apparent reference to the United States, which last year angered China by offering to mediate South China Sea disputes and calling them a matter of its own national interest.

Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat who chairs the Senate subcommittee overseeing American policy toward east Asia, said Vietnam and other countries were watching whether “we are going to back up those words with substantive action.”

“That does not mean military confrontation, per se, but we have to make a clear signal,” he told a Washington seminar organized by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Webb and Sen. James Inhofe, ranking Republican on the subcommittee, introduced a Senate resolution Monday condemning China’s actions. It supports continued operations by US forces to defend freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and urges the United States to facilitate a multilateral process to settle the territorial disputes.

The US diplomatic intervention last year was welcomed by countries in the region, most notably Vietnam, which has a historic rivalry with China, against which it fought a bloody border war in 1979.

The latest spat between the communist-led countries has prompted rare protests in Vietnam, which says Chinese boats cut a cable attached to a vessel conducting a seismic survey off its coast May 26 and hindered operations of another vessel June 9.

For its part, China accuses Vietnam of illegally entering its waters and putting fishermen’s lives at risk. It has not commented on Vietnam’s naval drills.

Webb described China’s actions as a clear interference in “proper activities by Vietnam.”

The Vietnamese live-fire drills began at the uninhabited island of Hon Ong, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) off the coast, said a naval officer based in central Quang Nam province. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Despite the disagreement with China, he said the drills were routine annual exercises involving artillery and other weapons. He said no missiles would be fired, and declined to say how many troops or vessels were involved.

China had no immediate reaction to the maneuver, while Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Vietnam was “within their sovereign right” since the drills were in its waters. – AP