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Freedom of navigation, flight in South China Sea in interests of all: China
"The South China Sea is our common home. To uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea and uphold freedom of navigation and overflight serves everyone’s interests," he told an online East Asia Summit, stressing the importance of the ASEAN bloc's centrality in the region.
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang attends the closing session of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China May 28, 2020. (Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)
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nsuring freedom of navigation and overflights in the South China Sea is in the interests of all nations, and countries should resolve their differences via international cooperation, China's Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday.
"The South China Sea is our common home. To uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea and uphold freedom of navigation and overflight serves everyone’s interests," he told an online East Asia Summit, stressing the importance of the ASEAN bloc's centrality in the region.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meanwhile told an online meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders on Wednesday that activities that violate Japan's sovereignty are continuing in the East China Sea, the government said in a statement.
China claims a group of uninhabited Japanese-administered islets in the East China Sea, and Chinese Coast Guard vessels occasionally enter what Japan considers its territorial waters.
At the East Asia Summit, one of the top-level meetings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Wednesday, Kishida also expressed serious concerns about the Hong Kong situation and human rights in Xinjiang, the statement said.
President Joe Biden, who also joined the summit of East Asian leaders said that the United States was deeply concerned by China's "coercive" actions across the Taiwan Strait, calling it a threat to peace and stability.
Speaking at the virtual event also attended by Li and other regional leaders, Biden reiterated that the United States had a "rock-solid" commitment to Taiwan.
"We are deeply concerned by China's coercive ... actions," Biden said, charging that they "threaten regional peace and stability."
"The US is committed to Taiwan. In fact that commitment is rock solid and consistent across administrations. It continues to be the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits and within the region," he said.
Biden last week said the United States, which is obliged by a 1979 law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, would come to Taiwan's defense if it was attacked by China. Those comments caused a stir because they appeared to depart from a long-held US policy of "strategic ambiguity" as to how Washington would respond to such a scenario.
The White House said Biden was not signaling a change in US policy toward Taiwan, and some analysts dismissed his comments as a gaffe.
Tensions between Taiwan and China have escalated in recent weeks as Beijing raises pressure on the island it claims as its own with repeated air missions over the Taiwan Strait, the waterway separating the island and the mainland.
China expressed displeasure at Biden's comments last week. Its foreign ministry urged Washington "not to send the wrong signals to the forces of Taiwan independence, to avoid seriously harming Sino-US ties and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait."
