MOSCOW, November 15 (Sputnik) – Territorial disputes could cause damage to economic progress in East Asia as there is a danger that they could spiral into confrontation, US President Barack Obama said Saturday.
"…there are genuine dangers that can undermine this [economic] progress [in East Asia]," Obama said in a speech at Brisbane's University of Queensland, as quoted to AFP.
"…disputes over territory — remote islands and rocky shoals…threaten to spiral into confrontation," the US president added.
Recently, the United States has been increasingly concerned with China's military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, amid territorial disputes between China and US allies in East Asia.
Four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam — claim parts of the South China Sea, while China says that almost all of the sea is its own.
China is also involved in a territorial dispute with Japan over a set of islands in the East China Sea.
Tensions over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands escalated in mid-2012 when Japan announced the nationalization of the islands causing a wave of anti-Japanese protests in China. China expressed willingness to take all the necessary measures to protect its territorial integrity.
