ASIA PACIFIC

China Stands by Its Claims Over South China Sea Reefs

By ANDREW JACOBSMAY 16, 2015

Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Beijing on Saturday.CreditKim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

BEIJING — China’s top diplomat, emerging from talks here with Secretary of State John Kerry, suggested Saturday that Beijing had no intention of scaling back island-building efforts in the South China Sea that have aggravated tensions in waters claimed by a number of neighboring governments.

At a news conference, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Chinese claims over a collection of uninhabited reefs off the coast of the Philippines were “unshakable,” suggesting that Mr. Kerry’s message that China help reduce tensions in the region had fallen on deaf ears.

“The determination of the Chinese side to safeguard our own sovereignty and territorial integrity is as firm as a rock,” Mr. Wang said.

Mr. Kerry, on his fifth visit to China as secretary of state, is ostensibly here to discuss plans for a White House summit meeting between President Obama and President Xi Jinping, and an annual gathering of Chinese and American officials that is scheduled to take place next month in Washington.

During their talks Saturday morning, the two men said they had covered a range of issues that both sides have cooperated on in the past: climate change, Iran’s nuclear program and improved military relations between Washington and Beijing.

“There is no question but that our nations share extraordinary opportunities that are looking at us as we build the history of this century,” Mr. Kerry said. “We have a lot to accomplish together in the coming years.”

But China’s ramped-up dredging efforts in the South China Sea, which began after Mr. Xi took power three years ago, have become an increasingly nettlesome issue for Washington. Although the United States does not have a position on the overlapping territorial claims by China and five other governments, it says it is committed to freedom of navigation in the area, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The most recent surge of land reclamation in the atolls and outcroppings known as the Spratlys is 1,000 miles from China’s southernmost point, Hainan Island, but just off the coast of the Philippines, an American treaty ally.

Recent satellite images show that the Chinese have vastly expanded a number of reefs in the Spratlys, and that they are building a concrete runway on one island capable of handling military aircraft.

State Department officials said last week that Mr. Kerry would deliver a tough message to Chinese leaders, although his public comments on Saturday were subdued.

“I urged China through Foreign Minister Wang to take actions that will join everybody in helping to reduce tensions and increase the prospect of a diplomatic solution,” Mr. Kerry said.

The news conference was carefully scripted, with Chinese officials allowing only two questions: one from a Western news outlet directed at Mr. Kerry, and another posed to Mr. Wang by a reporter from China’s state news media.

Mr. Kerry, however, declined to respond to what was undoubtedly the most anticipated question of the day: what were his thoughts on the news that the Pentagon was considering sending military aircraft and ships to within 12 nautical miles of the Spratlys as a show of American resolve.

It was Mr. Wang, however, who responded to the question, breaching the agreed-upon protocol and suggesting that the presence of American military aircraft in the region would have little effect on China’s island-expanding venture. “It is the people’s demand of the government and our legitimate right,” he said.