Biden backs Trump rejection of Beijing’s South China Sea claim

Washington, July 12

The Biden administration on Sunday upheld a Trump-era rejection of nearly all of China’s significant maritime claims in the South China Sea.

The administration also warned China that any attack on the Philippines in the flashpoint region would draw a US response under a mutual defense treaty.

The stern message from Secretary of State Antony Blinken came in a statement released ahead of this week’s fifth anniversary of an international tribunal’s ruling in favour of the Philippines, against China’s maritime claims around the Spratly Islands and neighbouring reefs and shoals. China rejects the ruling.

Ahead of the fourth anniversary of the ruling last year, the Trump administration came out in its favour, but also said it regarded as illegitimate virtually all Chinese maritime claims in the South China Sea outside China’s internationally recognised waters.

Sunday’s statement reaffirms that position, which had been laid out by Trump’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

“Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea,” Blinken said, using language similar to Pompeo’s. He accused China of continuing “to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway”. — AP 

China rejects verdict as ‘waste paper’

• A defiant China on Monday dismissed the 2016 verdict of the international tribunal on the South China Sea, rejecting its claims over the area as a piece of “waste paper”
• It brushed aside US’ fresh backing for the judgment as a “political farce” to smear Beijing
• Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman’s remarks came as the PLA claimed to have “expelled” US Navy destroyer USS Benfold which sailed through the South China Sea
• Without authorisation from the Chinese government, the US guided-missile destroyer trespassed into China’s territorial waters

Chinese ship litter ‘endangering reefs’

Swarms of Chinese vessels have dumped human waste and wastewater for years in a disputed area of the South China Sea, causing algae blooms that have damaged coral reefs and threatened fish in an unfolding catastrophe, said Liz Derr, who heads Simularity Inc. Ap