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China can’t pick and choose principles to benefit from: Ashton Carter

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China cannot “pick and choose” principles it wants to benefit from and those it prefers to try to undercut, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has said amid flexing of muscles by Beijing in the disputed South China Sea.

Noting that the US has “serious concerns” over China’s recent actions including in the seas, Carter said principles are meant to apply to every nation “equally”.

“The United States still has serious concerns with some of China’s recent actions on the seas, in cyberspace, and elsewhere. Beijing sometimes appears to want to pick and choose which principles it wants to benefit from and which it prefers to try to undercut,” he said in his remarks aboard the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego.

For example, the universal right to freedom of navigation that allows China’s ships and aircraft to transit safely and peacefully is the same right that Beijing criticises other countries for exercising in the region. “But principles are not like that. They’re meant to apply to everyone, and every nation, equally,” he argued.

China is involved in a raging dispute with the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei over ownership of territory in the South China Sea (SCS), a busy waterway through which India’s 50 percent trade passes.

 

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