Pentagon accuses Beijing of "destabilizing" acts in China Sea

Recent missile fire by the Chinese military in the South China Sea is helping to destabilize a region where several countries are competing for the sovereignty of strategic islands, the Pentagon said Thursday. Confirming reports that the People's Liberation Army had launched up to four ballistic missiles near the Paracel Archipelago, the US Department of Defense said such fire was in contradiction with the commitment, made by Beijing in 2002, to avoid actions likely to aggravate regional conflicts of sovereignty.

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Carrying out military exercises in the South China Sea “has the opposite effect of easing tensions and maintaining stability. China's actions, including missile testing, further destabilize the South China Sea, ” the Pentagon said in a statement. The Paracel Archipelago, located in the South China Sea, has been controlled for more than 40 years by Beijing but is also claimed by Vietnam.

Washington is rebelling against China's desire to “militarize” this maritime area knowing that, in the sovereignty conflicts between it and its neighbors, Beijing is no longer afraid to question the status quo that prevailed. At the beginning of July, the Pentagon said it was "concerned" by Chinese military maneuvers around this strategic archipelago, with waters rich in resources, near which Washington regularly sends warships to assert "freedom of navigation".

This time the Pentagon is referring to military exercises carried out by Beijing between August 23 and 29 near the Paracels, which China calls the Xisha Islands. These maneuvers are, for Washington, "the latest in a long list of actions by the People's Republic of China to assert illegal maritime claims, to the detriment of its neighbors in Southeast Asia."