By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) - China's military on Friday criticized remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Washington had a strong interest in seeing territorial disputes in the South China Sea resolved peacefully.

Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng told reporters China opposes what he called the "internationalization" of the matter, a reflection of Beijing's long-held position that the disagreements were a matter for China and the other disputants to deal with alone.

China claims the entire sea and its island chains as territorial waters over which it exercises complete sovereignty. Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines also claim some or all of the islands that lie amid vital shipping lanes and are believed to have large oil and natural gas reserves.

China has opposed a multilateral approach to the disputes, preferring to deal with each country on a bilateral basis.

"We are the against the internationalization of the South China Sea issue," Geng said at a rare news conference held at an engineering regiment's base on the western outskirts of Beijing.

However, he indicated that China would not interfere with the passage of foreign ships and planes through the area as long as they were in compliancewith international law. China strongly opposes U.S. naval surveillance missions conducted in the South China Sea off its southern coast, calling them illegal.

Geng's mild tone appeared to indicate China does not wish to escalate the disagreement over Clinton's remarks, delivered last week at a regional security forum in Vietnam.

Clinton said the U.S. was concerned that conflicting claims on the Spratly and Paracel island chains interfere with maritime commerce, hamper access to international waters in the area, and undermine the U.N. law of the sea.

The United States, Clinton said, has a "national interest" in resolving the claims and opposes the use or threat of force by any claimant.

Although Washington says it does not take sides in the various territorial disputes, Clinton's remarks constituted a clarification of U.S. policy in the region that added to Chinese concerns over newly active U.S. diplomacy in Southeast Asia.

Although her comments appeared to take China by surprise, U.S. officials say Beijing first upped the ante by telling visiting Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg this spring the South China Sea was now considered one of the country's "core interests" alongside Taiwan and Tibet.

The spat is the latest in a series of disputes that have roiled bilateral relations in recent months, stoking nationalist sentiment in China and causing U.S. officials to reconsider their original low-key approach to human rights and other sensitive issues.

Beijing had expressed concerns about joint U.S.-South Korean war-games this week in the Yellow Sea off the northeastern Chinese coast, saying the participation of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington could be seen as a provocation by putting Beijing within striking range of U.S. F-18 warplanes.

The exercises were a response to North Korea's suspected sinking of a South Korean warship earlier this year, and Geng said China - Pyongyang's main ally - was concerned they could further raise tensions in the area.

He said Washington bore responsibility for repairing a rift in ties that prompted Beijing earlier to suspend exchanges with the U.S. military in anger over Washington's $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan and turn down a proposed visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

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