Free Republic

CHINA’S top general blamed the Obama administration’s new focus on Asia for various disputes in the East and South China seas, claiming that “some neighboring countries” were using it as a chance to provoke problems. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday, the People’s Liberation Army’s Chief of the General Staff General Fang Fenghui also warned that the US must be objective about tensions between China and Vietnam or risk harming relations between Washington and Beijing. He defended China’s deployment of an oil rig in the South China Sea and said China had no intention of abandoning drilling despite...

General Fang Fenghui, China’s chief of general staff, is now in the US on a five-day tour of American military facilities, including the naval air station in San Diego, where he inspected the USS Ronald Reagan, one of America’s 10 active aircraft carriers. Most notably, he will receive a “full-military-honors arrival ceremony” at the Pentagon on Thursday. The visit comes as a fleet of about 80 Chinese vessels, both military and civilian, are protecting a drilling rig that China National Offshore Oil Corporation, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, positioned just off Vietnam’s coast at the beginning of this month. China’s ships...