By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR
WASHINGTON: Despite rising tensions in the South China Sea, the US Navy’s top admiral says his Chinese counterparts “by and large” behave professionally, not provocatively, when the two nations meet at sea. And precisely because of those tensions, Adm. John Richardson said, it’s all the more important to emphasize cooperating with China, not confronting it.
Indeed, while Richardson carefully avoided making policy statements, he sounded much more optimistic about China than either Russia or Iran, whose forces have made dangerously close approaches to US ships in recent weeks. He also downplayed the danger posed by the long-range sensors and missiles — so-called Anti-Access/Area Denial(A2/AD) systems — that all three countries are building, saying that keeping US forces at bay remained “an aspiration” for America’s adversaries, rather than a reality they could deliver.
When it comes to China, “first and foremost, I think we’ve got to continue to engage,” Richardson said this morning at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. The US and China have common interests, such as combatting piracy, which is on the rise in the South China Sea even as it wanes off the Horn of Africa, he said. “(In) areas where we don’t necessarily agree, (such as) destabilizing, provocative types of behaviors in the South China Sea,” Richardson continued, the goal is “to continue to move towards some kind of compromise resolution (and) do everything we can to minimize the risk involved in the relationship.”
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