By EDWARD WONG
BEIJING — A Chinese admiral said Sunday that Beijing could set up an air defense zone above disputed areas of the South China Sea if it thought it was facing a large enough threat, according to Chinese news media.
Adm. Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, speaking at a regional security forum in Singapore, said that China had not definitely said it would create a so-called air defense identification zone, but that any decision would be based on an aerial threat assessment and the maritime security situation. He also said other nations should not overemphasize the issue.
The creation of an air defense zone would be viewed by the United States and Southeast Asian nations as a huge provocation. In recent years, foreign officials have speculated whether one of Beijing’s next moves in the South China Sea would be to set up such a zone, which would further solidify China’s military presence in the waters.
In November 2013, to the dismay of Japan and the United States, China declared an air defense identification zone over disputed waters in the East China Sea. Chinese military aircraft began requiring all other aircraft flying through the zone to identify themselves, and commercial airliners complied, though the United States sent B-52 bombers through the zone without advance warning to challenge Beijing.
In late May, Chinese officials told the United States to stop sending surveillance flights near land formations that China claims as its territory. American officials say the flights have been over international waters.
Admiral Sun’s remarks came during a question-and-answer session after he delivered the main Chinese speech at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore. As at previous such meetings, much of the focus of the conference, which ended on Sunday, was on territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where China, Taiwan and Southeast Asian nations all have competing claims to waters, islands, reefs, shoals and sandbars. In recent weeks, the United States has criticized China for island-building and land reclamation efforts on disputed reefs and atolls that were uninhabited until recently.
In his address to the security conference on Saturday, Ashton B. Carter, the United States defense secretary, reiterated an earlier demand for China and other nations to stop such island-building. The United States has said that China is building much faster than any other nation and has completed 2,000 acres of land reclamation in the last 18 months. Vietnam and the Philippines have built structures on some land formations, but much of that construction took place before 2002, when China and rival claimants to territory signed a nonbinding agreement to cease any provocative activity in the region.
About a month ago, the United States military spotted a pair of mobile artillery vehicles on one of the new islands, but those soon vanished, American officials said last week. China has said its islands will be used for maritime aid as well as military defense.
“China and the Chinese military have never feared the devil or an evil force, and we are convinced by reason but not by hegemony,” Admiral Sun said on Sunday, according to a transcript of his speech posted by the Chinese Defense Ministry. “Don’t ever expect us to surrender to devious heresies or a mighty power. And don’t ever expect us to swallow the bitter fruits that would harm our sovereignty, security and development interests.”
He added that the United States was guilty of hypocrisy, since it had criticized China’s military deployment on the islands while its officials had, at the same time, said they would bring weapons of their own to bear on the regional situation.
China has maintained that its right to construction is based on its understanding that the territory belongs to China. On Saturday, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, released a long, six-point rebuttal to Mr. Carter’s statements, including some phrases that Admiral Sun also used, saying that “the U.S. side made inappropriate remarks on China’s longstanding sovereignty as well as rights and interests in the South China Sea to foment dissension and criticized China’s normal and justified construction activities on islands and reefs.”
Admiral Sun said Sunday that the situation in the South China Sea had been “peaceful and stable” and that there was no problem with freedom of navigation in the sea.
He added that China remained committed to resolving the disputes with its neighbors through talks. But China has long insisted that any such talks be undertaken bilaterally, not by more than two countries at a time.
“We can’t enter the 21st century with our bodies alone while leaving our heads in the past, under the limits of colonial expansionism, a Cold War mentality and a zero-sum game,” Admiral Sun said, adding that China wanted to promote “win-win cooperation.”
The United States and countries in the region say China’s actions are taking place at the expense of other nations’ interests and are jeopardizing diplomatic relations. Most notably, in May 2014, China placed an exploratory oil rig near the Vietnamese coast and off the shores of the Paracel Islands, land formations also claimed by Vietnam. That prompted daily clashes between Chinese Coast Guard vessels and Vietnamese boats, along with deadly rioting in Vietnamese cities against factories perceived to have Chinese owners and workers.
In a possible sign of the growing importance of the Chinese Navy, Admiral Sun was the first naval officer appointed to lead Beijing’s delegation to the Shangri-La Dialogue since China began attending in 2007. He was also the most senior military officer to lead the delegation since 2011.
Admiral Sun, 63, is the only naval officer in the current eight-person leadership of the People’s Liberation Army general staff headquarters, which oversees the navy. He joined the navy at age 16 and served for many years as a captain of both conventional and nuclear submarines, earning the nickname Iron Captain. In 1985, he commanded a crew for a voyage of 90 straight days on a nuclear submarine, breaking a record held by the American Navy, according to a report on the website of People’s Daily, the flagship Communist Party newspaper.
His submarine background dovetails with the growing emphasis of the Chinese military on open-water force projection. Last Tuesday, the Chinese military issued a strategy paper, its first in two years, that said it intended to project naval power in the open ocean in addition to defending coastal waters.
As the admiral was speaking, Mr. Carter left Singapore for Vietnam, where he spent the afternoon in Haiphong, the port city that is home to the country’s naval and Coast Guard headquarters. Mr. Carter visited both — becoming the first American defense secretary to do so — and went aboard a Vietnamese Coast Guard ship.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Mr. Carter said that the United States and Vietnam would sign a “joint vision statement” on Monday after he met with his counterpart in Hanoi. The purpose of the statement was to “modernize” the growing ties between the United States and Vietnam, Mr. Carter said, adding that the United States was also planning to give Vietnam $18 million to help buy patrol boats.
Mr. Carter said he and Vietnamese officials would also discuss an American proposal for an agreement among the countries claiming territory in the South China Sea that would halt all land reclamation efforts. But the emphasis of Mr. Carter’s comments was on the growing ties between the United States and Vietnam, not the issues that still divide them. “My whole trip here is a demonstration, I think, of how far our relationship has come over 20 years, let alone since before that,” he said. The two countries re-established formal diplomatic ties in 1995.