By Colin Packham
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia and New Zealand
on Friday strongly urged China to refrain from stoking tensions in the
South China Sea after its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles
on a disputed island.
Tensions between China and its neighbors
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan over sovereignty
in the South China Sea were raised after Taiwan and U.S. officials said
China deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile system to Woody
Island, in the Paracel Island chain.
"We urge all claimants in
the South China Sea to refrain from any building of islands, any
militarization of islands, any land reclamation," Australian Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull said after a meeting in Sydney with his New
Zealand counterpart John Key. "It is absolutely critical that we ensure
that there is a lowering of tensions."
Turnbull said if Chinese
President Xi Jinping was serious about avoiding the so-called Thucydides
Trap, where a rising power causes fear in an established power that
escalates toward war, he must resolve disputes through international
law.
"President Xi is right in identifying avoiding that trap as a
key goal," said Turnbull, who is expected to visit Beijing in April.
New
Zealand, the first developed country to recognize China as a market
economy and to sign a bilateral free trade deal, was leveraging its
relationship with China to urge measures to lower tensions, Key said.
"As
we get a deeper and closer economic relationship with China, does that
give us more opportunities to make that case, both privately and
publicly? ... my view is yes," said Key, noting that both Australia and
New Zealand are now also part of the Asian Investment Bank.
The
comments come after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited
Beijing, where she bought up the missiles and the South China sea in
meetings with Chinese officials, including top diplomat, State
Councillor Yang Jiechi.
Yang, in a statement released by the
Foreign Ministry late on Thursday, said he told Bishop that Australia
was not a party to the dispute, should stick to its promises not to take
sides and "not participate in or take any actions to harm regional
peace and stability or Sino-Australia ties".
The Chinese
government has offered few specific details in response to the missiles
claim, while accusing Western media of "hyping up" the story and saying
China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it
views as its own.
Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols
the United States has conducted near islands China claims in the
region. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in
November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical
miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month.
An influential
Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, in an editorial on Friday
described the HQ-9 missiles that are apparently now on Woody Island as
"a typical type of defensive weapon", but warned the People's Liberation
Army may feel compelled to deploy more weapons.
"If the U.S.
military stages a real threat and a military clash is looming, the PLA
may feel propelled to deploy more powerful weapons," it said.
