New US Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticised China’s ‘dangerous’ actions towards the Philippines in the South China Sea.
New United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured Manila of Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defending the Philippines in the face of Chinese provocation in the South China Sea, during his first call with Philippines Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo.
Rubio also criticised Beijing’s “dangerous and destabilising actions in the South China Sea” in the call on Wednesday with Manalo, which the US’s top diplomat said violated international law.
“Secretary Rubio conveyed that [China’s] behavior undermines regional peace and stability and is inconsistent with international law,” the State Department said in a statement.
“An armed attack in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea, on either of their public vessels, aircraft, or armed forces – which includes their Coast Guards – would invoke mutual defence commitments,” the State Department noted.
Washington and the Philippines, a former US colony, signed the Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951 stipulating that both countries would come to one another’s defence if they faced attack.
Rubio held the call with his Philippine counterpart a day after holding a four-way meeting with his Quadrilateral Security Dialogue counterparts from India, Japan and Australia.
In a veiled warning to Beijing, the four-country diplomatic and security grouping – known as the Quad – said they support a “free and open Indo-Pacific” region, “where the rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty and territorial integrity are upheld and defended”.
“We also strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,” they said in a statement.
China holds expansive claims covering most of the South China Sea, infringing on the maritime claims of several Southeast Asia nations, including the Philippines.
In 2016, in a dispute brought by Manila against Beijing, the Permanent Court of Arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled that China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea lacked any legal basis.
The ruling, which Beijing has rejected, has had little bearing on China’s growing assertive actions in the disputed maritime area.
Chinese and Philippine vessels have engaged in increasingly tense confrontations over disputed islands, waters and reefs in the area over the past year.
On January 14, the Philippines criticised China for deploying a “monster ship” inside Manila’s exclusive maritime economic zone, calling the move by China’s coastguard alarming and intended to intimidate fishermen operating around a contested shoal.
“It is an escalation and provocative,” Philippines National Security Council spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said at the time, adding that the presence of the vessel was “illegal” and “unacceptable”.
In response, the Philippine navy held a “sovereignty patrol” with a live-fire exercise near the shoal, followed by joint military exercises with the US.
That week, China’s People’s Liberation Army also conducted military combat readiness drills in the contested waters.
The Scarborough Shoal is one of the hotly disputed chains of reefs in the South China Sea. While sitting inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), China holds de facto control over the shoal.