South China Sea: US official held ‘constructive’ talks with Beijing’s top borders official

Top officials from China and the United States held “constructive and candid” talks on a range of maritime issues in Beijing, the State Department said Friday (Nov 3). 

This can be seen as another step in the modest process to thaw relations between the two nations ahead of a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden this month in San Francisco. 

Mark B Lambert, who is the US Department of State China coordinator and deputy assistant secretary for China and Taiwan, met the Chinese Director-General for Boundary and Ocean Affairs Hong Liang. 

The State Department said in a statement that the “two sides held substantive, constructive, and candid discussions on a range of maritime issues, including the situation in the South China Sea and East China Sea”. 

The statement further added that the US “underscored concerns” with Beijing’s “dangerous and unlawful actions in the South China Sea”. 

It included China’s “obstruction” last month of a Philippine resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal and “its unsafe intercept of a US aircraft on October 24”. 

The meeting was also confirmed by the Chinese state media, but it did not provide details.

As quoted by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Rick Waters, said on Thursday that the danger of one of these close calls spinning out of control was serious. Waters served as the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for China and Taiwan until late June and is now managing director at the Eurasia Group. 

Waters said, “Actually, in some ways the risk that I worry about next year are not even about the [US] election. It’s … this dramatic increase in unsafe military intercepts of US and allied aircraft along [China’s] periphery. These are happening now at a rate of two to three a week.” 

This meeting comes after recent high-level diplomacy, including talks between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Washington. 

Watch: Anthony Albanese to hold talks with Xi Jinping 

China sought to shore up its vast territorial claims over virtually the entire South China Sea by building island bases on coral atolls nearly a decade ago. The United States responded by sending its warships through the region in what it calls freedom of operation missions.

The US has no claims itself but has deployed Navy ships and aircraft for decades to patrol and promote free navigation in international waterway and airspace.

China routinely objects to any action by the US Military in the region. The other parties the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei claim all or part of the sea, through which approximately $5 trillion in goods are shipped every year.

(With inputs from agencies)