Beijing should solve South China Sea row before planning regional integration

AS if to dispel any lingering doubt that China intends to pursue its interests in the South China Sea with vigour, China's ambassador to Washington, Cui Tiankai, warned last week that there should be "no illusion that anyone" (presumably the United States and its South-east Asian allies) can "impose a unilateral status quo on China".

In other words, Beijing's claim to the whole of the South China Sea, based on its 1947 nine-dash map and its recent land-reclamation activities in the Spratly Islands, Paracels and Scarborough Shoal, is not open to negotiation. And, as if to back up his words, latest satellite images show that Beijing has transformed the partly submerged Mischief Reef (in the Spratlys) into an island since the beginning of this year. This artificial island now has an aircraft runway, shipping docks and at least one multi-storey building.

China also appears to be building an airstrip on the Fiery Cross Reef, also in the Spratly Islands. As the Philippines, one of the claimants to islands in the area, pointed out, these facilities and assets could be used to disrupt freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Of course, Beijing asserts that the facilities are there for peaceful purposes - to provide emergency services to China's own fishing and merchant fleets, vessels of neighbouring countries and other ships that sail across the South China Sea. Indeed, Beijing maintains that all it wants is good relations with its southern neighbours. So, at the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual economic dialogue held in China's Hainan province earlier this month, President Xi Jinping himself outlined proposals, inter alia, for a Maritime Silk Road that will link China to the Indian Ocean via the South China Sea. And this year is supposed to be one of China-Asean cooperation. The Silk Road proposal is to encourage a free flow of economic factors.