China's powerful state newspaper Global Times has urged the country's military to prepare for military confrontation ahead of an international arbitration ruling on a dispute with the Philippines over the South China Sea.
The calls came as China began a week of military manoeuvres around the disputed Paracel Islands on Tuesday and tensions in the region were running high, with Vietnam complaining about the naval drills.
The Global Times accused the US of trying to bully China on its doorstep and threatened to levy “an unbearable cost” if Washington continued to interfere in the South China Sea.
"The tone of the South China Sea dispute has completely changed," ran the editorial in the newspaper, which is published by the same state-owned group behind the Communist Party organ People's Daily and generally takes a strongly nationalist stance.
“It began as a dispute over maritime rights and interests between China, the Philippines and Vietnam, now US forces have become deeply involved. China’s maritime territorial sovereignty is under threat.”
The Global Times went on to call for a strengthening of the military and issued a stark warning to the United States.
“China should accelerate the establishment of strategic military deterrence capabilities. Although it is impossible to keep up with the US militarily short term, China is capable of causing an unbearable cost to the US for interfering in the South China Sea dispute. Right now the US is bullying us at our own front gate, China has no way out, and the islands in the South China Sea will not be lost.”
Washington was trying to flex its muscles and send a message to the whole region by sending aircraft carriers to the western Pacific “and waiting for China’s obedience”, it said.
The Chinese naval drills run until July 11th, one day before an international arbitration court in The Hague is expected to rule on a 2013 complaint by the Philippines over who owns the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal.
Separately, Vietnam issued a statement protesting against the manoeuvres, demanding that China stop the drills it sees as a threat to security and maritime safety.
China has said the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction and said it will not recognise the findings of the case, which it believes violate the basic principle of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“China hold military drills in the South China Sea every year. Whether these drills have clear aims depends on outside forces. If there are provocative and harmful attempts by outside forces, threatening Chinese military security, then the Chinese military drills will be a clear countermeasure,” the Global Times said.
