China: Will press US on South China Sea

China on Tuesday said it will raise its major concerns, including the South China Sea, Tibet and Taiwan issues, with the US during the bilateral annual “Strategic and Economic Dialogue” to be held here in June.

China announced on Monday that the dialogue, which will take place on June 6 and 7, will be attended by US secretary of state John Kerry and other top American officials.

China will bring up topics related to its major concerns, including the Taiwan question, Tibet and maritime security and it will respond to the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue which the US is expected to raise, state-run China Daily reported, quoting Chinese officials as saying. The two countries have differing pursuits on major issues at the strategic level. However, the two still have many common interests, the officials said. Whether it is on the South China Sea issue or on the Korean Peninsula issue, the two countries have a shared security goal to maintain regional stability, they said.

Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said the South China Sea issue will be brought to the table because it has affected the two-way ties, and the US has been “undermining regional stability” while “rebalancing to Asia” in the past two years.

China claims almost all of South China Sea which is disputed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

US has been dispatching its warships into the waters claimed by China to assert freedom of navigation.

China has strongly opposed such actions, alleging the US threatens its sovereignty and security, endangers the safety of people and facilities on the reef and harms “regional peace and stability”.

Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which started in 2009, has become the highest-level, regular bilateral communication channel for the world’s two largest economies to compare notes on key issues.