US joins fray over map on Chinese passports
WASHINGTON—The United States said on Tuesday it will raise concerns with Beijing over a map printed in new Chinese passports that is causing “tension and anxiety” among claimant states in the disputed West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
The Philippines and Vietnam have objected that the map shows disputed maritime regions as belonging to China. India has also complained over the map’s depiction of its northern border with China and retaliated by issuing Chinese citizens visas embossed with New Delhi’s own maps.
“We do have concerns about this map, which is causing tension and anxiety between and among the states in the South China Sea,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
“We do intend to raise this with the Chinese,” she said, adding the new passports were not “helpful to the environment we all seek to resolve these issues.”
Nuland told a news briefing it was up to countries to decide what their passports look like and the United States would still accept the Chinese one as a legal document.
But she added: “That’s a different matter than whether it’s politically smart or helpful to be taking steps that antagonize countries.”
The US intervention won’t be welcomed by Beijing, which regards as meddling Washington’s advocacy for peaceful settlement of the conflicting claims in the West Philippine Sea, a potential regional flashpoint. The United States has no territorial claim itself but says it has a national interest in the stability of a region vital to global trade.
Taiwan last week protested after China started issuing the new travel documents with maps featuring two of the is- land’s most famous scenic spots as part of Chinese territory.
Taiwan has condemned the map, which is printed on inside pages of the passport. Taiwan is self-governing but Beijing claims it as part of China.
The map shows an outline of China, and includes Taiwan and the sea, hemmed in by dashes. Chinese official maps have long shown the same, but this is viewed as particularly provocative since it requires other nations to stamp it.
And Vietnamese immigration officers said on Tuesday they were refusing to stamp entry visas into the new biometric passports which show the contested Paracel and Spratly Islands as Chinese territory, saying they violated its sovereignty.
China’s new passports also provoked protests by the Philippines for showing various islands in the West Philippine Sea as being in its territory despite overlapping sovereignty claims.