Territory - South China Sea

After the US and Japan issued a joint statement calling for China's "adherence to international norms of behaviour" and the Philippines citing a 1951 treaty that supposedly obliged the US to help defend the Philippines should she come under attack in the disputed Spratly Islands, the tensions over the South China Sea finally reached the level of big power diplomacy. Vice FM Cui Tiankai reminded the US that she "is not a claimant state to the dispute" and "so it is better for the United States to leave the dispute to be sorted out between the claimant states.” He issued the stern warning that “I believe the individual countries are actually playing with fire, and I hope the fire will not be drawn to the United States.” Kurt Campbell, a US assistant secretary of state. later responded that the US "does not take a position on sovereignty issues, but we also have strong principles that are long-standing in the maintenance of freedom of navigation, and free and unimpeded legal commerce, and the maintenance of peace and stability".