The U.S. on Wednesday prodded South Korea to take a stand against China’s growing assertiveness in territorial disputes in the South China Sea, complicating Seoul’s strategic calculations amid the escalating Sino-U.S. competition.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel told a U.S. forum that Seoul should “speak out” against Beijing’s aggressive behavior given that it is a “major stakeholder” in the international system that it has long benefited from.

It was the first time that a senior U.S. official has publicly mentioned the role of Seoul with regard to long-festering maritime disputes in the South China Sea. 


“The role for the Republic of Korea is the role of a major stakeholder in the international order. It’s the role of a country of laws. It’s the role of a trading nation. It’s a role of a country that has flourished under the international system,” Russel said during a forum cosponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Korea Foundation.

“The fact that, like the United States, the Republic of Korea is not a claimant, in my view, gives Seoul all the more reason to speak out because it is speaking not in self-interest, but speaking in support of universal principles and the rule of law.”

Russel’s demand came as China has been turning numerous rocks and reefs in the Spratly Islands into artificial islands to construct military bases equipped with naval harbors, airstrips, radar facilities and other equipment.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have engaged in intense territorial claims with China, while Beijing has delineated its claim to the vast majority of the South China Sea with “the nine-dashed-line” ― a maritime demarcation line that takes in more than 80 percent of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea.

Regarding Russel’s remarks, Seoul officials said they believed the senior U.S. official was mentioning the “universal principle,” which Seoul sticks to as a law-abiding member of the international community, denying that it was pressuring Seoul to take a stand against China.

Washington’s apparent moves to pressure Seoul to take up a role in addressing China’s maritime assertiveness pose a daunting diplomatic challenge, as Seoul hopes to maintain a close strategic partnership with Beijing ― its core partner for trade, tourism and efforts to denuclearize North Korea.

China has recently revealed its “active defense” strategy, which shifted its naval operations focus from “offshore waters defense” to “open seas protection” and stressed a longer-range projection of military might, heightening tensions between the two major powers.

Observers say China’s hardened military posture could make it even tougher for Seoul to make diplomatic and defense-related decisions such as allowing the U.S. to deploy its strategic missile defense asset ― the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system ― to the peninsula.

The U.S. concerns over the artificial islands stem from the possibility that Beijing’s maritime ambitions may hurt Washington’s efforts to safeguard what it calls “global commons,” namely freedom of navigation in the world’s most crucial transport route for energy and trade.

The concerns have led the U.S. to come up with the military concept of “Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons,” and pushed it to concentrate its state-of-the-art military assets including the stealthy Zumwalt destroyers and Littoral Combat Ships in the western Pacific areas.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)