On September 13, AFPC Director of Asia Security Programs Jeff M. Smith was part of a small group of U.S. experts invited by the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. to brief the France’s Ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, on security developments in the South China Sea. Specifically, Ambassador Araud sought insights on American perspectives regarding recent turmoil over territorial disputes in the region between China, on one hand, and Vietnam, Japan, and the Philippines on the other.
The assembled group, which included senior military and diplomatic experts and officials, unanimously supported a strategy to challenge any illegal Chinese claims to rights over seven artificial islands it has constructed in the South China Sea over the last two years.