Hillary Clinton on Iran, Syria, the drug war, and why she went to Togo | FP Passport
CHINA
When asked about the Chinese perception that the U.S. "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific region is destabilizing, Clinton noted that "you might need a psychiatrist to answer that because we certainly have made it as clear as we possibly could that the Pacific is big enough for both of us." She then argued that the current wave of territorial disputes in the South China Sea is about resources, plain and simple, adding that a Chinese official once asked her how the United States would feel if Beijing claimed Hawaii:
At one point in one of my long discussions about this, one of my Chinese interlocutors said, "Well, we could claim Hawaii." I said, "Well, go ahead, and we'll go to arbitration and prove we own it. That's what we want you to do."
So I think that this is a learning process for everybody, because why are these now - these old territorial disputes coming to the forefront? Because people think there are resources, and they want to drill, and they want to find out what's there. And they think it's got material benefits for them. But it has to be done in a lawful way. And that's why I've advocated strongly that we accede to the Convention on the Law of the Seas, because it will strengthen our hand in making these cases.