668 { China’s Quest
pursue their claims through UNCLOS, with “legitimate claims to maritime
space in the South China Sea ... derived solely from legitimate claims to
land features.” This was implicitly a rejection of Beijing’s claim to the entire
South China Sea on the basis that it is a “historic sea” belonging, by history,
to China, rather than being a 200-mile EEZ drawn from terrestrial coastlines
according to customary international law and UNCLOS. Finally, Clinton said
that the United States was “prepared to facilitate initiatives and confidence
building measures” that were consistent with the 2002 ASEAN-China decla-
ration of conduct in the South China Sea.^56
Washington also gave military substance to the new tougher US approach.
The month after the ASEAN forum in Hanoi, the United States and Vietnam
conducted their first-ever joint naval exercise in the South China Sea. The
US task force was built around the aircraft carrier USS George Washington,
which had just completed maneuvers with South Korea in the Sea of Japan.^57
After the maneuvers with Vietnam, the George Washington returned north
for a second round of maneuvers with South Korea, but this time in the far
more sensitive Yellow Sea.
Beijing objected strongly to the new US “interference” in the South China
Sea disputes. Territorial conflicts should not be “internationalized” but set-
tled by the two parties involved, Beijing asserted. China’s territorial conflicts
with Southeast Asian countries could not, it insisted, be dealt with on a mul-
tilateral basis with other countries ganging up against China. Nor did any
extraregional power have the right to involve itself in these conflicts. Yet here
was the United States doing precisely that, while encouraging the Southeast
Asian countries to join together to confront China on the issue.
Then, on November 23, North Korea launched a second military strike
against the south, this time with artillery bombardment of the small South
Korean–held island of Yeonpyeong in the same vicinity as the Cheonan sink-
ing. The bombardment went on for a day, with 170 shells and artillery rockets
being fired at the island, killing four and wounding nineteen. South Korean
artillery retaliated and the fighting became some of the worst since the end
of the Korean War. The Yeonpyeong bombardment came five days before the
start of US–South Korean naval maneuvers, this time in the Yellow Sea. That
naval demonstration was a powerful demonstration of Washington’s deter-
mination to uphold the right of navigation by warships in another country’s
EEZ, as the United States believed was permitted by customary international
law. In Beijing, the MFA condemned the US-ROK maneuvers, saying “we
oppose any party undertaking any military activity in our exclusive eco-
nomic zone without permission.” General Luo Yuan was quoted by Xinhua
as saying “The United States and the ROK should not take sensitive and pro-
vocative military action at such a sensitive time and place.” To do so was
“pouring oil on flames.”^58 As for North Korea’s initiation of an artillery duel
over Yeonpyeong, the MFA called for an emergency meeting of the Six Party