On Friday Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the peaceful resolution of competing sovereignty claims to the South China Sea is a U.S. "national interest." "The U.S. supports a collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants for resolving the various territorial disputes without coercion," she said in Hanoi during a regional security conference, the Asean Regional Forum. "We oppose the use or threat of force by any claimant."
Beijing quickly reacted. Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi characterized Clinton's comments as "an attack on China," and in a sense he was right. China has claimed virtually all that body of water as its own. By doing so, Beijing has said it has sovereignty over the continental shelves of the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam. Most of China's claims there are baseless, and some are ludicrous. That is perhaps why the Chinese have resorted to force to grab islands and islets from other claimants. China seized the western Paracels from Vietnam in 1974 and Mischief Reef from the Philippines in 1995.
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