China to US: Stop support of PH 'provocations' in SCS

CHINA urged the United States to cease bolstering and endorsing the alleged "provocations" of the Philippines in the disputed territories in the South China Sea (SCS).

In a statement posted on the Chinese Embassy website Friday night, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said that Beijing's message was conveyed by Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu in a phone conversation with US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, where the two sides had a "candid and in-depth exchange of views" on the current China-US relations and issues of mutual interest.

Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu. EPA-EFE/WU HONG

Mao Ning said Ma Zhaoxu urged the US to act on President Joe Biden's "five-noes" commitment, which included not supporting Taiwan independence, not challenging China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, not interfering in China's internal affairs, not using Taiwan as a bargaining chip, and not engaging in military or official exchanges with Taiwan.

He urged the US to earnestly respect China's sovereignty, security and development interests and play a positive role in the steady development of China-US relations rather than doing the opposite.

In Washington, the US State Department said that Campbell "raised serious concerns" about Chinese aggressive actions in a call with Ma Zhaoxu.

State Department spokesman Mathew Miller said Campbell also reiterated that US commitments to the Philippines under the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) remained "ironclad."

China and the Philippines have traded accusations over "dangerous and illegal maneuvers" affecting their respective vessels around the Second Thomas or Ayungin Shoal, a disputed atoll in the busy waterway.

The Philippines sent resupply missions to soldiers living aboard the 100-meter BRP Sierra Madre vessel, an aging warship deliberately grounded by Manila in 1999 at the atoll to check the advance of China in the hotly contested waters.

The unorthodox tactic to establish the Philippines' presence on the shoal was in response to China's occupation of the nearby and then-uninhabited Mischief Reef, also claimed by Manila, a few years earlier.

Beijing has turned Mischief Reef and other reefs and outcrops into artificial, militarized islands to assert its claims in the waters.

Second Thomas or Ayungin Shoal, located in the Spratly Islands, is about 200 kilometers west of the western Philippine island of Palawan and more than 1,000 kilometers from China's nearest major landmass of Hainan island.

This means it is inside the Philippines' 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone (EEZ). A 2016 arbitral ruling supported the Philippines' claim.

An EEZ gives a country sovereign rights to fisheries and natural resources but does not denote sovereignty over that area.