Washington: The latest US decision on disinvitation of China from the annual maritime military exercise is a “very unconstructive” move, Chinese Foreign Minister and Councilor Wang Yi said today, hoping that the Pentagon would change such a “negative mindset”.
“The Pentagon’s decision on disinvitation of Chinese military in the RIMPAC exercise, we find that a very unconstructive move, non-constructive move. It’s also a decision that’s taken lightly. It’s unhelpful to mutual understanding between China and the US,” he told reporters in a joint news conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo here.
Wang said both the US and China are “big” countries and are “well positioned” to have greater cooperation at the sea. “Mil-to-mil exchanges will help to increase mutual trust. It will also help us to make greater efforts towards world peace and stability,” he said.
On the militarization in the South China Sea, Wang said, “China is only building civilian and some necessary defense facilities on its own islands”.
“That is the right to self-defense and preservation of every sovereign state. It is a normal deployment and has nothing to do with militarization, just like the US has military presence in Hawaii, in Guam,” he said.
Wang said the Chinese deployment was at a “much smaller scale than the US”.
“It’s just out of necessary defense purposes. We don’t hope to see any exaggeration or hype-up of this matter,” Wang said.
Pompeo said this was an issue of discussion between the two leaders. “I will leave to DOD to talk about that. Only to say that we have expressed consistent concern about militarization of the South China Sea. We had a chance to talk about that. And I will leave it to our militaries to talk about their efforts together,” said the US Secretary of State.
Earlier in the day, alleging that Beijing is engaged in “destabilizing behavior” in the South China Sea, the Pentagon kicked out China from its annual maritime military exercise.
Asserting that the US is committed to a free and open Indo-Pacific, it said China’s continued militarization of disputed features in the South China Sea only serve to raise tensions and “destabilize” the region.
“As an initial response to China’s continued militarization of the South China Sea, we have disinvited the PLA Navy from the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise. China’s behavior is inconsistent with the principles and purposes of the RIMPAC exercise,” Lt Col Christopher B Logan said.
The Department of Defense, he said, has strong evidence that China has deployed anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and electronic jammers to contested features in the Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea. PTI
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