Chinese officials are taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to enhance a military advantage over their neighbors in a critical international shipping waterway, according to U.S. officials.
“We call on the PRC to 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,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Monday, referring to the People’s Republic of China,
Chinese President Xi Jinping has deployed military assets to artificial islands in the South China Sea in the last several years, claiming sovereignty over the vast swaths of ocean despite objections from other nations in the region and American leaders. That policy took an unexpectedly violent turn on Friday when the Chinese Coast Guard reportedly rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel operating in the contested waters.
“We are seriously concerned by reports of the PRC’s sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel in the vicinity of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea,” Ortagus said. “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.”
A senior Chinese diplomat claimed that the collision the fishing vessel “suddenly veered sharply” into the Coast Guard vessel, but Vietnamese authorities lodged a formal protest with Beijing and demanded compensation for the fishermen.
“The Chinese vessel committed an act that violated Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa archipelago and threatened the lives and damaged the property and legitimate interests of Vietnamese fishermen,” the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s team argued that China is intensifying its aggression under the cover of the coronavirus. “Since the outbreak of the global pandemic, Beijing has also announced new “research stations” on military bases it built on Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef, and landed special military aircraft on Fiery Cross Reef,” Ortagus said. “The PRC has also continued to deploy maritime militia around the Spratly Islands. China’s Nine-Dashed Line was deemed an unlawful maritime claim by an arbitral tribunal convened under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention in July 2016, a position shared by the U.S. government.”
The collision with the fishing vessel may have escalated unintentionally, but it highlights how China is asserting control over an ocean area that has been treated as an international waterway in decades.
“It’s surprising that they used so much force,” Gregory Poling, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Examiner. “This is the new normal in the South China Sea: Nobody operates without China’s permission, or they face a real risk of a violent run-in with the Coast Guard or the Chinese militia.”
