Chinese Ambassador to U.S. Excoriates Obama’s War Provocation

Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai yesterday directly denounced Obama’s overt threat of war on China through the provocation of sending warships into Chinese sovereign territory.

“I think what the United States is doing is a very serious provocation politically and militarily,” Cui said in an interview with the U.S. cable news network CNN. “It’s a clear attempt to escalate the situation and to militarize the region. So we’re very concerned about that.”

Cui called the U.S. action an “absurd and even hypocritical position” to ask others not to militarize the region, while the U.S., itself, is sending military vessels there so frequently, according to CNN.

He said the move was taken “in total disregard of the international law.” The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has clear provision about the safety of navigation, freedom of navigation, and innocent transit, Cui said, noting that China has signed the UNCLOS, but the United States has not. “What the U.S. is doing is totally against the provision, the letter and spirit of the convention,” he said.

Cui said that the US move will in fact force China to deploy military forces into the region: “We have to make sure we have sufficient means to safeguard our sovereignty there, to protect our lawful rights there, and … maintain peace and stability there, and nobody will have any more illusion that it could continue to provoke,” he said.

“And it certainly will not weaken our position and commitment to developing a healthy and strong relationship with the United States. But this is a two-way track and we have to have reciprocal actions from the United States,” he added.

The U.S. press was full of vitriol and bravado, for Obama taking on the Chinese. David Ignatius of the Washington Post even ran a fantasy about Xi Jinping facing assassination threats and revolts within China because of his cleaning out the corrupt layers of the Chinese Communist Party.

Nonetheless, Japan’s NHK press reported, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, will visit China next Monday for talks with the Chinese military. The talks were scheduled before the United States deployed the destroyer into Chinese sovereign territory.

Global Times, an official paper of the ruling Communist Party, issued a more virulent response. While advising that China “should stay calm,” it presents the necessary course: