Beijing on NKorea, ties with US, South China Sea

March 27, 2017

published: 2017-03-27 12:49:24 (22 Mar 2017) China is not building an environmental monitoring station on a disputed South China Sea shoal, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday, apparently denying remarks made by a local official last week. Speaking at a regular briefing, Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said reports about the facility on Scarborough Shoal had been checked and were found to be false. The official Hainan Daily newspaper had quoted the top official in Sansha City, which administers China’s island claims, as saying that preparatory work on the station was among the government’s top priorities for 2017. Such a move would likely renew concerns among Beijing’s neighbours over its assertive territorial claims in the sea. Calls to Sansha government offices rang unanswered on Wednesday. Beijing seized tiny, uninhabited Scarborough in 2012 after a tense standoff with Philippine vessels. Hua also stated during the same briefing that the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula was a long-standing issue with a very complex background. She commented that those who started the trouble should be the ones who end it, referring to the recent escalation of both sides, with North Korea on one side, and South Korea and the US on another.

While replying to questions about the recent trip by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to China, and whether the Chinese media had played up the mission by calling it a “success”, Hua said it had not been ‘a success’ for either side but that both countries ‘have taken a new and remarkable step forward in the right direction’ in regards to co-operation.