US says S China Sea pacts in its national interest, riling Beijing US riles Beijing over South China Sea disputes
Clinton stand on a Chinese 'core interest' causes tension at forum

Greg Torode Chief Asia correspondent in Hanoi

Washington issued a fresh challenge to Beijing yesterday by declaring the resolution of disputes over the South China Sea to be in the US "national interest", comments which exasperated Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi .

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told regional counterparts at the Asean Regional Forum that the disputes over the highly strategic sea were a "leading diplomatic priority" and now "pivotal to regional security".

While she offered to help foster negotiations, her comments significantly raise Washington's direct involvement in an issue involving Chinese sovereignty - one that Beijing recently warned Washington was among its "core interests", along with Tibet and Taiwan.

China and Vietnam claim the sea's Spratly and Paracel archipelagoes in their entirety, while the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim the Spratlys in part. Taiwan's claim mirrors Beijing's. Potentially rich in oil and gas, both island groups straddle vital sea lanes linking Asia to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"The United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia's maritime commons and respect for international law in the South China Sea," Clinton said. She referred repeatedly to the need to settle the rival territorial claims under international law - including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea - and "existing Asean principles".

One senior Association of Southeast Asian Nations diplomat said the issue of the Spratly Islands had been raised explicitly by members of Asia's top security forum, as well as concerns about China's military build-up, which has been marked by the rapid modernisation of its navy.

"The discussion was quite tense at one point. China ended up on the defensive," said the diplomat, who declined to be identified. Yang was "clearly exasperated", he said.

A second diplomat with knowledge of the discussion said Yang responded with "a very strong and emotional statement essentially suggesting that this was a pre-planned mobilisation on this issue. He was distinctly not happy."

Yang declined to discuss details of the meeting with the media. "I expressed the position, the consistent position, of the Chinese side," he said.

Yang met Clinton on the sidelines of the forum but a Xinhua report of the meeting did not mention the South China Sea.

The move by Washington underscores its desire to forge new security alliances in the region in the face of China's expanding diplomatic and military reach.

In another sign of Washington's attempt to play catch-up, Clinton also extended an invitation from US President Barack Obama to Southeast Asian leaders for a Washington summit.

Beijing is expected to view the unprecedented US involvement as a provocation, coming after months of backroom pressure to block Vietnam's attempts to internationalise the issue, particularly through Asean.

Beijing's envoys have repeatedly insisted the South China Sea dispute should be solved bilaterally between China and individual claimants to the island chains - a situation that would play to China's strengths.

But Hanoi has led a discreet regional charge in recent months, with several countries privately urging Washington to act over China's growing assertiveness, from its imposition of a unilateral fishing ban to extensive naval exercises and diplomatic pressure.

Vietnam has fortified bases on more than 25 Spratly islets and reefs. China occupies all the Paracels. Tensions between them exploded into violence in a sea battle in 1988, and have long simmered despite progress on other Sino-Vietnamese disputes in recent years.

Hanoi has fast-tracked the development of its military relationship with the US, its former enemy, and struck a major submarine deal with Russia, its ally in the cold war.

Clinton repeatedly talked up ties with Hanoi, praising Vietnam as a dynamic and great nation. "The partnership and co-operation with Vietnam is increasing day by day," she said.

The Pentagon has also noted China's actions with alarm, particularly its persistent warnings to US and other international oil firms to pull out of exploration deals with Hanoi in southern Vietnamese waters. Executives at ExxonMobil - the world's biggest oil firm - were approached by Chinese envoys and told that its China business would be hurt unless it pulled out of a deal with Vietnam.

Professor Jin Canrong, associate dean of Renmin University's school of international relations in Beijing, said Clinton's statement would not be welcomed by China's leadership.

"It has been China's long-standing policy to handle territorial disputes with neighbouring countries as bilateral affairs. Thus, such disputes should be resolved by nations concerned," Jin said.

While saying he understands US interest in the region, Jin said it was not Washington's business. "China will ignore Clinton's call and reject any US role in the consultation to resolve its territorial disputes with the neighbouring nations."

Significantly, the South China Sea gives the Chinese navy some of its only deep-water access - a fact now exploited by the growing number of People's Liberation Army submarines operating from a base on Hainan .

Dr Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the fact so many participants raised the sovereignty issue yesterday and that the United States had come out strongly, represented a major development for the forum, often derided as a talk shop.

"This is a diplomatic challenge to China," he said. "China has been able to use that forum to back its own policies almost unimpeded, and now it's probably looking back and realising what thin ice it was on."