Australia joins US in rejecting Beijing’s South China Sea claims

Australia has joined the US in rejecting China’s territorial and maritime claims over a disputed group of islands in the South China Sea, ratcheting up already simmering tensions between Beijing and Canberra.

In a formal declaration to the United Nations, Australia said there was “no legal basis” to several disputed Chinese claims in the South China Sea, including those related to the construction of artificial islands on small shoals and reefs.

“Australia rejects China’s claim to ‘historic rights’ or ‘maritime rights and interests’ as established in the ‘long course of historical practice’ in the South China Sea,” the declaration read.

“There is no legal basis for China to draw straight baselines connecting the outermost points of maritime features or ‘island groups’ in the South China Sea, including around the ‘Four Sha’ or ‘continental’ or ‘outlying’ archipelagos.”

A number of countries are involved in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, in the Pacific Ocean. While Australia is not among them, it is well inclined against China and has in the past joined provocative maneuvers by the United States in the region.

The South China Sea serves as a gateway to global sea routes, through which about 3.4 trillion dollars of trade passes each year. Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei have overlapping claims with China to parts of the sea.

China claims the strategic waterway is its sovereign territory and has since 2014 built artificial islands on reclaimed reefs and installed military bases on them.

The United States, which sides with Beijing’s rivals in the maritime dispute, routinely sends warships and warplanes to the area to assert what it calls its right to freedom of navigation, heightening tensions among the regional countries.

The declaration comes as Australian Defense and Foreign Ministers Linda Reynolds and Marise Payne are scheduled to leave for Washington on Sunday to meet with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

The United States has over the past years been at loggerheads with Beijing over a range of issues, including trade, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the coronavirus pandemic.

More recently, tensions increased between Australia and China when Canberra backed a call by US President Donald Trump for an investigation into the origins of the new coronavirus. Trump calls the coronavirus “the Wuhan Virus,” a reference to the name of the Chinese city where it first emerged, and an attempt to stigmatize China.

In the wake of Canberra’s repetition of Trump’s call, China has cut back on its imports from