U.S. REASSURES
US will work with China on N. Korea and maintain stance on South China Sea, says Pentagon chief
SINGAPORE
PENTAGON chief Jim Mattis moved to reassure Asian allies yesterday that the United States could work with China on reining in North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme without compromising its opposition to Beijing’s continued “militarisation” of the South China Sea.
US President Donald Trump, who frequently denounced China on the campaign trail, has turned to Beijing to help pressure Pyongyang, prompting broad concerns that the US would go easy on China’s maritime activities.
Longstanding partners are jittery that Trump has seemed indifferent to traditional alliances, and have interpreted his pulling out of a trans-Pacific trade deal and the Paris climate pact as signs of broader US disengagement.
Mattis, arguably Trump’s most important statesman as the new president tries to slash the State Department, tried to reassure allies on all counts.
“In the security arena, we have a deep and abiding commitment to reinforcing the rules-based international order, a product of so many nations’ efforts to create stability,” Mattis said here at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a major defence summit for countries from Asia Pacific and beyond.
Calling North Korea’s nuclear ambitions a “threat to us all”, Mattis asked the international community to unite on the issue.
It is “imperative that we do our part each of us to fulfil our obligations and work together to support our shared goal of denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula”, Mattis said.
“The Trump administration is encouraged by China’s renewed commitment to work with the international community toward denuclearisation,” he said.
Pyongyang on Monday testfired another rocket, the latest in a series of launches and atomic tests that have ratcheted up tensions over its quest to develop weapons capable of hitting the US — something Trump has said “won’t happen”.
The defence chief spoke directly to concerns that the US might grant concessions to China to ensure cooperation on North Korea, saying the issue was not “binary” and that the US would continue to pressure Beijing elsewhere.
“Artificial island construction and indisputable militarisation of facilities on features in international waters undermine regional stability,” Mattis said, calling China out over its “disregard for international law” and “contempt for other nations’ interests”.
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, despite partial counter-claims from Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam. Summit delegates were anguished by the South China Sea issue and Trump’s intentions.
One person asked if the US president was an “unbeliever” in the rules-based regional order.
Another wondered if he could be trusted given his “America First” pronouncements.
“Bear with us,” Mattis said. “We will still be there, and we will be there with you.”
Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada later said she placed “full trust” in the US, a sentiment echoed by Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne.
“It didn’t take Secretary Mattis’s speech this morning to reassure me of the attitude and engagement of the US in the region.
“I think actions speak as loud if not occasionally louder than words,” she said, pointing out that Mattis’s first international visit was to Japan and South Korea.
On Friday, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told the summit that China had nothing to gain by strong-arming its way in the Asia Pacific.
He warned that a “coercive” Beijing would only face resentment in the region.
He said it was inevitable that China play a bigger regional role to match its rising economic weight, but cautioned against threatening its smaller neighbours. AFP