On Thursday, China rejected a joint press release made by Japan and East Timor that expressed concern over the South China Sea.
The joint press release was issued after the meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and East Timorese President Taur Matan Ruak in Tokyo on Tuesday, in which Japan and East Timor expressed serious concern over the recent situation in the South China Sea.
“Japan is not eligible to make comments on the South China Sea issue. However, it actively misled the public and smeared China in the international community recently, regardless of basic facts. I want to tell the Japanese side that doing so will be vain. It will only make the Chinese people see clearly some Japanese people’s mentality,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang at a regular press briefing.
However, the South China Sea has become a place of tension between the Chinese and the west. Several analysts suggested that the US has been backing and influencing the Chinese neighbors to stand against China in order to implement the US policy to contain China.
Every year $5.3 trillion of trade passes through the South China Sea, $1.2 trillion is U.S. trade. And more than half of the world’s annual merchant fleet tonnage and a third of all maritime traffic worldwide travel through Chinese waters.