South China Sea: US accuses China over Scarborough Shoal

The United States has accused China of destabilizing activity near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, saying Beijing is using environmental and legal arguments to advance its territorial claims.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Washington rejected China's attempts to enforce a “national nature reserve” at Scarborough Reef and deny Filipino fishermen access to what he called their traditional fishing ground.

Pigott said China's action was a unilateral attempt to use “dubious environmental and legal pretexts, backed by coercion” to advance its maritime claims at the expense of neighbours.

China recently published new rules for managing the nature reserve it created last year around the shoal, which Beijing controls. Scarborough Shoal is a reef formation about 240 kilometres from the main Philippine island of Luzon and hundreds of kilometres from mainland China.

Both China and the Philippines claim the atoll. Beijing claims most of the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, despite an international ruling that its assertion lacks any legal basis. China and the Philippines regularly clash over disputed territories, with the most recent incidents taking place last month.