On 21 July US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel gave a keynote speech at a conference on the South China Sea hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In response to a question regarding U.S. neutrality on the disputes from Dr. Wu Shicun, President of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Russel stated: “We are not neutral when it comes to adherence to international law. We will come down forcefully on the side of the rules. We take no position however on the underlying sovereignty claims. Our concern is with behavior […] We also care passionately about the right of a state to make recourse to legitimate international mechanisms as a means of defending its interest or seeking justice or resolution of a dispute.”

This is not new nor should it be news. The U.S. has stated as much many times before. However China will likely consider this statement in the context of other US policy statements and actions on these (and other) issues between them, as well as the positions of the disputants. In doing so China is likely to draw the conclusion that the U.S. is being disingenuous and hypocritical and is actually supporting rival claimants against it. Why so?

Although it has not ratified the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea which in its view governs the jurisdictional aspects of these disputes, the U.S. insists that China must base its claims solely on it. This implies that any Chinese ‘history-based’ claim to jurisdictional rights within its nine-dash line is invalid. Outside of China and Taiwan—most would agree. But this is not a neutral position.

Moreover, the claims by the Philippines to a large swath of features and the Sea as Kalayaan, and that of Malaysia to various features because they lie on its claimed continental shelf are as spurious and weak as China’s historic ‘nine-dashed line’ claim. Yet the U.S. has remained relatively silent on these claims. Contrary to the Convention that they have ratified, Vietnam and Indonesia (which has also objected to China’s South China Sea claim) do not allow innocent passage of foreign warships in their territorial seas without their consent, while Malaysia does not allow foreign military exercises in its claimed EEZ. Yet the U.S has not publicly “called them out” as it has China. Similarly the U.S. has announced that it is considering challenging under its Freedom of Navigation Program China’s possible claims to territorial seas from some low tide elevations—but not those of Malaysia, Vietnam or Taiwan.

There are many other apparent contradictions in the U.S. position. The U.S. has also insisted in the past that China negotiate these issues multilaterally with a bloc of states – ASEAN – that includes non-claimants, and at one point even offered to mediate. But China’s well known position is that settlement of the disputes should be negotiated by “sovereign states directly concerned” as stipulated in the 2002 ASEAN-China agreed Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DoC), and that non-regional parties should not be involved.

Nevertheless Russel said in his address to the conference that “I don’t know anyone in the region who believes that a negotiated settlement between China and other claimants is attainable in the current atmosphere […] and then there is the absolutist political position taken by some claimants who insist that their own claims are ‘indisputable’ and represent territory – however distant from their shores – that was ‘entrusted to them by ancestors’ and who vow never to relinquish ‘one inch.’” This paraphrases several recent statements by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi including that [if China lost the Spratly Islands] it “would not be able to face [its] forefathers and ancestors.” Russel’s remarks probably do not sound “neutral” to China; indeed they may convey bias and ridicule.

China may think that Russel’s statement implies that China should participate in the proceedings regarding the Philippines complaint against it. But as the U.S. and China well know, China’s refusal to participate in the case is within its rights and certainly not the first time a powerful country has refused to participate in an international court proceeding. In 1984 Nicaragua filed a complaint against the U.S. with the International Court of Justice. The U.S. refused to participate in the proceedings after the court rejected its argument that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction. The ICJ eventually held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua’s harbors. The U.S. blocked enforcement of the judgment by the UN Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation.

China will also probably consider Russel’s claim of U.S. neutrality in the context of the recent blistering U.S. criticism of China’s construction and so-called “militarization” of features in the South China Sea and its silence regarding similar actions by other claimants. Not helpful in this regard was soon-to-be chief of naval operations admiral John M. Richardson’s recent remark to the US Senate Armed Services Committee that “many of the things they’re [the Chinese] are doing have an adversarial nature to them.” This was followed by CINCPAC admiral Harry Harris repeating deputy secretary of state Tony Blinken’s earlier comparison of “what China is doing with those islands to what Russia did with Crimea.”

In sum, China is likely to consider U.S. claims of neutrality in these matters to be disingenuous and duplicitous—and it is rather easy to see why. The U.S. needs to be consistent and stop hectoring China into a political corner. Otherwise it may not like the result. Indeed, China may conclude that the US considers it an adversary and plan and act accordingly.

Mark J. Valencia is Adjunct Visiting Scholar at the National Institute of South China Sea Studies in Hainan