Let cooler heads prevail on sea: observers

Some US observers say they agreed with what former state councilor Dai Bingguo emphasized in a speech, that China and the United States should turn down the heat on the South China Sea issue.

"I think state councilor Dai made very good points, especially that we need to lower the temperature, to cut back on the rhetoric, to continue to talk friendly," said Brendan S. Mulvaney, associate chair of the Languages and Cultures Department at the US Naval Academy.

He made the remarks at a news conference at which experts from China and the US shared the outcomes of a one-day dialogue on the South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks in Washington.

In his keynote speech at the dialogue, Dai said he would explore ways to genuinely "cool down" the South China Sea issue and "restore calm to this part of the world".

"We just need to be able to discuss when we have different opinions to solve these problems," Mulvaney says.

Chinese scholars including Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies; Zhu Feng, director of the Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies at Nanjing University, and Huang Renwei, vice-president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Science, talked about the history of the South China Sea, why it is pressing to stop the arbitration case initiated unilaterally by the Philippines, and how the US and China should work together on the issue.

US experts, including J. Stapleton Roy, former US ambassador to China, and John Negroponte, former deputy secretary of state and professor of international affairs at George Washington University, shared views from the US side.

Both sides agreed that the two sides should carry out more direct exchanges and communication.

"We had very meaningful exchanges with scholars and experts from US think tanks and discussed how to view the disputes and the future of South China Sea issues from multiple perspectives and in a comprehensive way," Wu says. "We also discussed the approaches and recommendations on resolving the South China Sea issues in a pragmatic way."

"We don't need to accept China's position, and China doesn't need to accept the US' position, but we do need to understand each other's position, and that they have doubts and concerns on things then we can work to understand, to find ways to solve these issues and to manage them, most importantly, to prevent a crisis or a conflict from exploding," Mulvaney says.

William Jones, Washington bureau chief for Executive Intelligence Review, says: "We really hope given some sort of oversensitivity of this ruling issue at this moment - all the sides cool off. We are strongly calling for some sort of cool-its.

"We should reasonably and objectively handle the ruling and use this moment to boost understanding of China's claim over the South China Sea, then also use this opportunity to craft in some sort of way goodwill and even the hospitality between different countries, ultimately, facilitate settlement of this dispute on rocks and reefs," Jones says.

"I hope think tanks from both countries would keep exchanges on a regular track and provide intellectual support for bilateral decision makers to manage the China-US relationship and formulate policies that are beneficial to bilateral interests in the new international order," Wu says.

Jones also says that if more exchanges of opinion like this one are held not only between the governments but also between the people of the two countries, the public opinion in the US mainstream about China's position in the South China Sea issue will be somehow different.

"It's very important that these dialogues occur because this is the only way that each side can really understand what the others are talking about. It doesn't necessarily change people, but for the long term, I think it has a positive effect on the mainstream in the US," Jones says.

Contact the writers at leshuodong@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/08/2016 page7)