US gets no vow from China to stop sea coercion

MANILA, Philippines — The United States perceives the first leg of the strategic and economic dialogue with China "hugely productive" even as China remained adamant with its claims on territorial waters and made no promise to back down on assertive behavior in the South China and East China seas.

Asked if State Secretary John Kerry brought up Chinese President Xi Jinping's invocation of the Confucian golden rule to be applied in the hotly contested maritime region, a senior diplomat said that Beijing will never stop insisting on historic rights.

"I’m not in the business of speaking for the Chinese or reading out the Chinese half of a diplomatic conversation. But the Chinese are never shy about asserting that there’s not much to discuss, that their claims are indisputable, and that they, while open to negotiations, discussions, and dialogue, will never cede what they claim to be their historic rights," the official said.

The state department official, whose name is withheld in a transcript of a press briefing held on Wednesday on the ongoing dialogue between the two biggest economies, said that the talk was a good forum for "hearing out the other guy" and for "chipping away at misperceptions" on issues of mutual concern, specifically China's row with the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan, among others.

"The candor and directness with which [Kerry] approached the issues of importance to the United States in his dialogue with [Chinese] State Councilor Yang [Jiechi] cannot have gone unnoticed and surely has had some effect," he said.

Washington urged Beijing anew to consider legal mechanisms such as arbitration, as the Philippines proposed, in settling maritime differences.

The senior official said that Kerry himself showed openness for any peaceful diplomatic vehicle including China's much preferred option of bilateral negotiations with each of the rival claimants.

Kerry, however, reiterated that fixing the problem by force through creating a new status quo governing the key waterway "at the expense of regional stability and regional harmony is unacceptable."

"And it is precisely there that, the Secretary pointed out, the U.S. takes a very firm view," the official said.

The US maintained its neutral stance in the merits of the nations' claims, saying it does not stand to gain if South China Sea features are judged to belong to one country.

"But we stand to lose, as does the entire region, if Country X or Country Y uses coercive measures, the threat of force, or other non-peaceful, non-diplomatic means to advance its claim or to change the status quo," the official said.

Nine-dash line as 'ambiguous'

Top Ameirican diplomats expressed the need for China to clarify its position encompassing 80 percent of South China Sea and overlapping with exclusive economic zones of its smaller neighbors like the Philippines.

Among Washington's main questions for Beijing is whether it is prepared to accept the judgment and jurisdiction of the tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—sought by the Manila' arbitration case—and potentially its decision on the controversial nine-dash line.

"Clearly, China rejects that and has shied away from making its legal case. But the ITLOS tribunal has given China an opportunity ‘til mid-December to change its mind," the senior official said.

"And it’s certainly our view that by clarifying China’s nine-dash line claim, it would eliminate some ambiguity that is clearly quite problematic in the region," he added.