THE United States stressed the importance of keeping the South China Sea open to navigation and overflight amid China’s continuing activities to militarize the regional waters, and America’s top military general assured US allies in Southeast Asia of support.
The necessity of keeping the South China Sea—which is being claimed by Beijing almost in its entirety—to international use was underscored by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III a week before his scheduled trip to Southeast Asia.
“On the importance of freedom of navigation of the seas and the skies, this is, this is really important, not only to the United States of America, but to all of our allies and partners in the region and around the world,” Austin said during a news briefing on Wednesday, US time.
Austin, who will take his first official trip to Southeast Asia next week and confer with officials in the region, was joined by Pentagon chief General Mark Milley during the news briefing. A transcript of the briefing was provided by the US Embassy in Manila on Thursday.
Earlier, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that he would expect to discuss four key security issues with his US counterpart, and these are the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), the Mutual Defense Treaty, the West Philippine Sea and the US-Philippines bilateral relations.
He said an addendum to the VFA to implement it, which is already under review by the Office of the President, is also up on the table when he meets with Austin, who is due in Manila on July 29.
Aside from Manila, the US defense chief’s travel would take him to Vietnam and Singapore, with the region’s security still topping his agenda.
Austin said the US will work with its allies and partners in order to ensure that the regional passageway is free for international use, unhampered by China.
“What we have done and what we will continue to do is to work with our allies and partners to make sure …that we can navigate…the skies…and the seas to the degree that we should have the right to…in accordance with international law,” he said, adding “our emphasis will remain on that.”
Part of the emphasis is to “keep those alliances strong.”
On the other hand, Milley directly acknowledged that the US military’s continuing reinvigoration was being influenced by China, which he said was a “pacing threat” for the US.
“As we go forward, China is the pacing threat for us in uniform, the United States,” he said. “So we are gearing our capabilities, our programs, our training, our skills, our activities, et cetera, militarily with China in mind. There’s no question about it.”
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said the US will meet China’s challenge with the help of its allies.
“And we will work very closely with Japan, with other countries —South Korea, Philippines, Australia and other allies and partners in the region—to make sure that we have proper capability to deal with it, whatever comes to us in the future,” Milley said.