The Vice President of the United States  Kamala Harris accused Beijing on Tuesday of coercion and intimidation in the hotly disputed South China Sea, as she sought to rally allies against an increasingly assertive China and pledged that Washington would pursue a free and open Indo Pacific.

Harris’ comments came during a trip to Singapore and ahead of a visit to Vietnam, where U.S. officials aim to reaffirm Washington's commitment to the region and address concerns about China's claims to disputed parts of the South China Sea. "We know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea," Ms. Harris said in a speech in Singapore. Referring to an international tribunal's ruling over China's claims in The Hague, She said that "These unlawful claims have been rejected by the 2016 arbitral tribunal decision, and Beijing's actions continue to undermine the rules based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations”

Beijing has been accused of deploying a range of military hardware including anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles there, and ignored a 2016 international tribunal decision that declared its historical claim over most of the waters to be without basis.

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