VP Kamala Harris talks South China Sea in Vietnam amid U.S.-China rivalry

The strategic competitors between the U.S. and China got here to forefront as Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off the second leg of her official go to to Southeast Asia in Vietnam.  

Harris informed Vietnamese officers within the capital metropolis of Hanoi on Wednesday there was a have to put strain Beijing on its actions within the South China Sea. Vietnam is a vocal opponent of China’s huge territorial claims within the strategic waterway.  

“We have to discover methods to strain and lift the strain, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Conference on the Legislation of the Sea, and to problem its bullying and extreme maritime claims,” mentioned Harris.

The United Nations Conference on the Legislation of the Sea or UNCLOS is a world treaty that outlines nations’ rights and tasks on the planet’s ocean area. It kinds the premise for the way worldwide courts, such because the Worldwide Tribunal for the Legislation of the Sea, settle maritime disputes. 

Harris’ remark adopted her speech in Singapore on Tuesday, when she mentioned Beijing had continued “to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the overwhelming majority of South China Sea.”

The South China Sea is resource-rich waterway that is a significant industrial transport route the place trillions of {dollars} of world commerce go by way of every year. China claims practically all the sea — elements of which have additionally been claimed by some Southeast Asian nations together with Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

In 2016, a tribunal on the Everlasting Courtroom of Arbitration dismissed China’s declare as legally baseless — a ruling Beijing ignored.

In response to Harris’ Singapore speech, Chinese language state media accused the American vp of searching for to “drive a wedge” between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Forward of her arrival in Vietnam on Tuesday night, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and China’s ambassador to Vietnam held a beforehand unannounced assembly, reported Reuters. In the course of the assembly, the Chinese language ambassador pledged a donation of two million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam, in keeping with the report.

Whereas Harris has been cautious about hitting out at Beijing, political analysts and former diplomats mentioned there’s little doubt that her journey is a part of the U.S.’ technique in competing with China.

The rivalry between the U.S. and China is the “largest” geopolitical difficulty at present, mentioned Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished former Singapore diplomat.

“So clearly the go to of Vice President Kamala Harris is a part of the competition between United States and China,” Mahbubani, now a distinguished fellow on the Nationwide College of Singapore’s Asia Analysis Institute, informed CNBC’s “Avenue Indicators Asia” on Wednesday.

“Southeast Asia goes to be a really, very important enviornment of that competitors,” he mentioned.

His sentiment is shared by Curtis Chin, a former U.S. ambassador to the Asian Improvement Financial institution. Chin mentioned the rise of China is “a giant international coverage problem” for the U.S. and far of the world, even because the fallout in Afghanistan continues.

President Joe Biden has confronted criticism over how he dealt with the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. The problem has overshadowed Harris’ journey to Southeast Asia, with reporters focusing their questions on Afghanistan on the vp’s joint press convention with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday.

“United States must go all in in its consideration to Southeast Asia and actually a lot of Asia, not simply the nations that we have now formal alliances with,” Chin, senior fellow on the Milken Institute, informed CNBC’s “Squawk Field Asia” on Wednesday.

“And once I say all in, that is not simply diplomatic and navy engagements, it means actual enterprise engagement — that is what the USA additionally must concentrate on,” he added.

In her talks with Singapore’s prime minister, Harris mentioned points starting from provide chains to local weather change and the pandemic.

She introduced in Vietnam that the U.S. will donate an extra a million doses of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine — taking the full U.S. donation to the Southeast Asian nation to 6 million doses. Harris additionally launched the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s new Southeast Asia regional workplace in Hanoi.

The vp is scheduled to conclude her Southeast Asia journey on Thursday.