News - Middle East: Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong has warned that the United States is posing the biggest military threat in the South China Sea as its weapons’ deployment there is turning the region into “the whirlpool of an arms race.” 

“At present, the biggest security challenge in the South China Sea comes from outside the region,” Sun said in comments published on Sunday, noting that Beijing was willing to resolve its territorial disputes with nearby countries in the South China Sea through dialog.

Sun, who recently attended a high-level meeting on East Asian cooperation in Laos, said US-led forces were “promoting military deployment and actions in the South China Sea, inciting and intensifying maritime disputes and contradictions, and damaging the legitimate rights and interests of coastal countries.”

A move by the United States to deploy medium-range missile systems in the area “is dragging the region into the whirlpool of an arms race, placing the entire Asia Pacific region under the shadow of geopolitical conflicts,” Sun noted, adding that Beijing aimed to properly manage its territorial disputes with the parties in the South China Sea through dialogue.