WASHINGTON — As tension rose over a U.S.-China sea dispute, President Barack Obama met China’s top diplomat Thursday and stressed the need for more frequent and intense communications to avoid military confrontations that could upset a relationship crucial to solving global crises.
The U.S. is not giving in to China’s demands that it cease naval surveillance in the disputed South China Sea. But Obama told Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi during an Oval Office meeting that it was crucial to raise the level of U.S.-Chinese military-to-military talks “in order to avoid future incidents,” the White House said.
The U.S. Navy has sent a destroyer to escort the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed sub-hunting ship that Chinese vessels confronted last weekend, a defense official said Thursday.
Yang, in comments before the White House meeting, did not address the naval incident. He called for a “broader and deeper” level of U.S.-Chinese cooperation on dealing with nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea, climate change, trade and economic issues, and an assortment of hot spots around the world.
“Confrontation hurts both sides,” Yang said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. The two countries, he said, should “shelve differences” that cannot be immediately resolved and focus on cooperation.
The United States says its ship was operating legally in international waters, but China claims the ship was violating Chinese law by conducting surveillance too close to the Chinese coastline. The United States says five Chinese ships improperly surrounded and harassed the Impeccable off Hainan Island on Sunday.
Yang also met with Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general. Jones, the White House said, also raised the confrontation.
Defense Department officials say the Impeccable was on a mission to seek out threats such as submarines and was towing a sonar apparatus that scans and listens for subs, mines and torpedoes. With its numerous Chinese military installations, Hainan offers rich hunting for such surveillance.
