Tensions between U.S., China escalate over island dispute

China’s massive land reclamation in the South China Sea will be on the agenda when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Beijing this weekend. His Asia trip will include a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday. A senior State Department official said Kerry intends to warn China about its general behavior in the South China Sea over the past year, especially the quadrupling of usable land on reefs and islands whose sovereignty is in dispute.

U.S. officials worry China’s creation of artificial islands by dredging sand and piling it on top of submerged reefs is a step-by-step attempt to assert greater territorial claims in dense shipping lanes around the Spratly Islands, as well as a covert attempt to increase its military influence in the area.

The Wall Street Journal reported Defense Secretary Ash Carter asked his staff to consider how to respond to China’s moves to beef up various reefs and islands it occupies. Plans now being discussed include sending U.S. ships and aircraft to within 12 nautical miles of the islands.

The U.S. military already patrols in the South China Sea, but even the hint of crossing the 12 nautical mile territorial limit around the islands immediately raised tensions with China. On Wednesday, China announced “serious concern” over news America might send military ships and aircraft to challenge Chinese claims.

Though the islands are geographically closer to Vietnam and the Philippines than China, Beijing said it would resolutely defend what it considered its sovereign territory—to the chagrin of Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan, all of whom also claim parts or all of the Spratlys and the surrounding sea.

While China agrees to freedom of navigation in the area, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said it “doesn’t mean foreign military ships and aircrafts can freely enter into another country’s territorial airspace and seas. China will firmly maintain its territorial sovereignty.”

The U.S. interest is in maintaining freedom of navigation for all. It sees overflight and movement on the high seas as its “legitimate rights.” But China asserts its own rights over virtually the entire expanse of the South China Sea and its island groups. The 2,000 acres of reclaimed dry land China now occupies sit in some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Besides rich fishing grounds and potential undersea mineral wealth, experts believe China plans to use the reefs and islands for airstrips and possible military purposes.

Beijing contends buildings and infrastructure on the islands are intended to support fishermen, not just to assert Chinese sovereignty.

On Wednesday, U.S. senators pleaded with the Obama administration for a strong response to China’s provocative actions. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said the administration lacked a “coherent policy,” and disputed the administration’s simplistic view that China can be motivated to change its tactics because it might get a bad image among its neighbors and the U.S.

“I see no price whatsoever that China is paying for their activities in the South and East China Seas. None. In fact, I see us paying a price,” Corker said. “We see our friends coming in constantly worried about where we are, what our commitment levels are.”

Whether the U.S. will cross the 12 nautical mile limit of the islands’ notional territorial zone to make a demonstration of freedom of navigation remains unknown. But David Shear, assistant secretary of defense for the Asia-Pacific, said many of the features China claims in the disputed Spratly Island chain are submerged in the water and so do not entail territorial rights.

“We claim the right of innocent passage in such areas, and we exercise that right regularly both in the South China Sea and globally, and we are going to continue exercising that right both under the surface of the water and in the air,” he said.

Top diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Russel, said China can pile up sand all it wants on reefs, but can’t “manufacture sovereignty.” He said “diplomacy will continue to be our instrument of first resort” but also noted the United States is “increasingly in demand” as a guarantor of security in the region.

“If the Chinese strategy was to freeze us out, it has backfired,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.