source：Bloomberg

CHINA will be firm in upholding its territorial integrity and believes disputes in the region should be settled through direct talks with the countries concerned, the nation’s top foreign policy official said.

“We will never trade our core interests or swallow the bitter fruits that undermine our sovereignty, security and development interests,” Yang Jiechi said in a speech at the World Peace Forum in Beijing on Saturday. Yang, a state councilor and former foreign minister, held talks last week in Vietnam to defuse tensions over a Chinese oil rig in waters claimed by both countries.

Asia’s largest economy has intensified moves to assert its territorial sovereignty in the East and South China Seas, ratcheting up tensions with the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan.

China has refused international efforts to resolve the conflicts and this month reiterated that it doesn’t recognize a United Nations tribunal investigating a complaint by the Philippines against China’s claims over the Spratly Islands.

“The problem now is that some countries are using outside influence to promote the internationalization of the South China Sea problems,” Wu Shicun, president and senior research fellow at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said in an interview after Yang’s speech. “These countries, such as Vietnam and the Philippines, use American support to increase their antagonism to China.”

Yang’s remarks about direct negotiations indicate China wants to eliminate any third party such as the US, he said.

In his speech, Yang did not mention the US’s role in regional territorial disputes, yet China has opposed the country’s “pivot” to Asia, blaming it for increasing tensions in the South China Sea.

China seems to be making efforts to deny the US military access to waters off the Chinese coast, Stephen Hadley, former US national security adviser to President George W. Bush, said at the forum. Yet the American military presence in Asia has been a stabilizing force and without it China’s neighbors might unite, he said.

“It runs the risk of creating the very containment strategy undertaken by its own neighbors that China so vigorously protests against in its conversations with the United States,” he said.

Yang’s comments echo those of Premier Li Keqiang, who said in Greece on June 20 that China is committed to settling maritime disputes through dialogue and negotiation “on the basis of respecting historical facts and international law,” according to a Xinhua News Agency report.

China will be resolute in safeguarding its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is conducive to safeguarding regional peace and order as well, Li said, according to Xinhua. The country will firmly oppose any act of hegemony in maritime affairs, he said.

Yang, who outranks Foreign Minister Wang Yi, visited Vietnam last week to defuse tensions over the placing of an oil rig, known as 981, last month by a Chinese state-owned company near the Paracel Islands.

Known as Xisha Islands in China, the area is claimed by both nations. The move led to skirmishes between coast guard vessels, the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat and anti-China demonstrations in Vietnam.

The same day as Yang held talks with Vietnamese officials, China’s Maritime Safety Administration announced the Nanhai 9 oil rig left waters off southern China that day heading southwest. Three other rigs, Nanhai 2, 4 and 5, are also in the South China Sea, it said. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on June 20 the rigs are in China’s coastal waters off southern Guangdong and Hainan provinces.