11/04/2014
Premier Li Keqiang delivered a warning to Southeast Asian countries with whom China is embroiled in territorial disputes, saying that China will "respond firmly to provocations."
His remarks, in a speech also peppered with calls for regional cooperation, follow a move by the Philippines last month to challenge China's claims to almost the entire South China Sea at a United Nations arbitration panel in The Hague, a legal gambit that has enraged China.
They also come U.S. officials harden their rhetoric against China's increasing assertiveness in the region. This week, visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned that this behavior risked conflict.
In a speech at the Boao Forum for Asia, Mr. Li combined a strong message regarding China's sovereignty claims with soothing words aimed at reassuring a region that is growing nervous about China's military intentions.
"I wish to emphasize that China is committed to peaceful development," he told delegates to the forum on Hainan, a southern island province through which China asserts sweeping administrative control over large tracts of the South China Sea.
"We will give full support to initiatives that help strengthen maritime cooperation," he said.
"On the other hand, we will respond firmly to provocations that undermine peace and stability in the South China Sea." He added: "We Chinese believe in repaying kindness with kindness and meeting wrongdoing with justice."
Read more at The Wall Street Journal
Click here for updated South China Sea news
In the past few years, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) has been expanding its activities in the South China Sea in particular and the Indo-Pacific in general.
On July 5, a week before hosting the 2023 NATO Summit, Lithuania released its own Indo-Pacific Strategy, becoming the 6th European country to devise such document (after France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the Czech Republic, if not including the EU). A few observations could be made from a...
On the 7th anniversary of the final ruling rendered by the Arbitral Tribunal in the arbitration between the Philippines and China concerning the South China Sea (July 12, 2016 - July 12, 2023), some countries, including claimants and non-claimants, issued statements expressing their positions regarding...
On 28 April, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued its final Judgment on the dispute concerning the delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, finally ending the dispute that had lasted for over three years. Both Mauritius...
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu officially visited Russia from April 15th to April 17th, 2023. The visit was closely monitored by the West due to their belief that the increasingly closer relationship between China and Russia, both politically and militarily, may result in China’s decision to provide...