Australia’s new prime minister told the ABC on Monday that island-building in the disputed area was ‘pushing the envelope’ of acceptable behaviour

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

China has ticked off Malcolm Turnbull over his comments on the South China Sea, saying Australia should maintain a neutral position over the contested area.

“We hope that Australia will stay committed to not taking sides on issues concerning disputes over sovereignty,” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing.

On Monday the new prime minister said island-building in the disputed area was “pushing the envelope” of acceptable behaviour.

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“The pushing the envelope in the South China Sea has had the consequence of exactly the reverse consequence of what China would seek to achieve,” Turnbull told the ABC on Monday.

Hong said the situation in the South China Sea was generally stable, and Beijing was having bilateral talks with nations concerned to resolve the disputes, as well as working with Asean nations to safeguard peace and stability in the area.

On Tuesday the Philippine president, Benigno Aquino, rejected China’s calls for a bilateral dialogue, saying that any talks should involve other countries that claim parts of the area such as Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan.

China, Vietnam and Taiwan claim all 200 or so of the Spratlys land features in the South China Sea, while Brunei, the Philippines and Malaysia claim parts of them.

On Monday Turnbull said China’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea had been one of the more counterproductive foreign policies the Asian country had ever undertaken.

“What the island construction and all of the activity in the South China Sea has done has resulted in the smaller countries surrounding that area turning to the US even more than they did before,” he said.

Australia’s new defence minister, Marise Payne, backed Turnbull’s comments.

“His remarks were very considered – I would have no difference with those remarks,” she said on Tuesday.

A Pentagon report released in August said China has reclaimed more than 1,174 hectares of land from the South China Sea in less than two years in its intensive island-building campaign.