The Chinese government has declared that the long-running dispute should be off-limits at talks to be held on Saturday, which will be attended by Mr Obama, China's Premier Wen Jiabao and 16 other nations including several with claims over the waterway.
But Mr Obama said the gathering, held this year on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, "can be the premier arena for us to be able to work together on a wide range of issues - maritime security or non-proliferation".
The president has irritated China with a drive to enhance the US role as a regional power, positioning Marines in northern Australia and pushing for a potentially transformational trans-Pacific trade pact.
Beijing sees the initiatives as intruding into its own sphere of influence, with the dispute over the South China Sea putting the two major world powers' differences into stark focus.
On Friday, Wen again warned against interference by "external forces" in the wrangle. » | Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Friday, November 18, 2011
My comment:
Obama is playing with fire. Two of the dumbest things he did this week were telling the world that the US is not afraid of China, and then going to Australia and advertising the fact that the US was going to expand its military in the region to protect the Australians from the Chinese. Is there no end to this man's cack-handedness? Is there no end to his naïveté? Is there no end to his lack of understanding?
If the US is truly not afraid of China, it is worrying, because it should be. Meddling in the region which is traditionally China's sphere of influence will lead to no good place. Is Obama trying to set the stage for the third world war, or what?
This is troubling indeed! – © Mark
This comment also appears here.
Related »
