China's construction of a "great wall of sand" with artificial islands in the South China Sea has sparked a stoush in Washington, with claims the White House has gagged US navy commanders criticising Beijing.
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US Pacific commander Harry Harris has been most prominent amid repeated warnings by US military leaders that China's ambitions in the disputed waters are destabilising the region.
He warned an audience in Canberra last year that China's artificial islands – with deep ports, airstrips and military facilities on former coral atolls – amounted to "creating a great wall of sand with dredges and bulldozers".
But an article in the military publication Navy Times this week reported the White House had sought to muzzle commanders ahead of a recent meeting between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
The article said National Security Adviser Susan Rice imposed the gag order on March 18 to allow "maximum political maneuvering space" for the two leaders ahead of their meeting last week, citing two unnamed "defence officials".
Admiral Harris had sparked further controversy earlier last month, seeking to revive an idea abandoned a decade ago for a naval coalition between Australia, the US, Japan and India.
It follows persistent debate in Washington over conducting so-called "freedom of navigation operations" by navy ships close to China's artificial islands as a way of signalling the US does not recognise sovereignty claims.
Active debate
Malcolm Cook from the Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore said the Navy Times article suggested there was still an active debate in Washington about how to respond to China.
But he said there was a tendency in southeast Asia and Australia to overestimate the debates over the South China Sea as the major US interest in the region.
"Some of it could be southeast Asian states wanting the US to adopt a position on South China Sea in line with their position," Dr Cook told Fairfax Media.
China claims a huge swath of the South China Sea, overlapping competing claims from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
Dr Cook said the US had steadfastly refused to take a position on sovereign claims, but insisted disputes be settled by international law.
A US Department of State spokesperson told Fairfax Media in a statement that the administration recognised "message discipline, especially when it comes to sensitive issues".
"It's no secret that we coordinate messaging … on such priorities. But efforts to be consistent are a far cry from a gag order," the spokesman said.
"To be clear, there never has been a gag order as described by anonymous officials in the article … specifically, we have routinely made the point that our operations in the South China Sea are routine, lawful and consistent with the way we operate globally."
US officials also warned China last week against establishing an exclusion zone over the disputed waters.
The Navy Times said Admiral Harris had been frustrated in seeking "a muscular US response", to include launching aircraft and conducting military operations within 19 kilometres of China's artificial islands.