US position in South China Sea ‘unwarranted’: American researcher

The United States position in the South China Sea is completely “unwarranted” as it attempts to impose its rule in the Asia-Pacific region in the face of Chinese opposition, an American researcher in California says.

The US “will invade countries in all continents in order to protect what it considers its vital national interests,” said Dennis Etler, a professor of anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California.

“But when any other country attempts to do the same, particularly when they’re subject to provocations by the United States, the US objects and attempts to push back,” Etler told Press TV on Monday.

Washington accuses Beijing of undergoing a massive “land reclamation” program in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea, and says China’s territorial claims of the man-made islands could further militarize the region.

A Chinese state-owned newspaper warned Monday that a war between the United States and China is “inevitable,” unless Washington stops demanding Beijing halt its construction projects in the South China Sea.

“If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea,” The Global Times, an influential newspaper owned by the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper the People’s Daily, said in an editorial Monday.

“The intensity of the conflict will be higher than what people usually think of as ‘friction’,” it warned.

Washington does not recognize China’s sovereignty in the disputed areas and is weighing sending surveillance aircraft and warships to test its territorial claims.

“The United States projects its power across the Pacific into the South China Sea, but it objects that China projects its presence right in its own backyard,” Etler noted. “China has clearly stated that it has no intention of trying to evict other claimants from the area.”

The Obama administration is trying to keep its focus on a widely advertised shift to Asia, which it has pursued since 2011. The White House argues that no region is more important to the United States’ long-term interests than Asia.

A new assessment released last month by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that the Obama administration’s Asia pivot has not been successful and American power and influence in the region has been declining.

Observers believe America’s efforts to increase its presence in the Asia-Pacific region is aimed at containing China.

China accuses the United States of meddling in the regional issues and deliberately stirring up tensions in the South China Sea.

AHT/HRJ

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