China will face mounting foreign pressure in defending its interests on its seas as the United States flexes its muscles in the Asia Pacific, experts said.

At the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said resolving territorial disputes off China's coast is "a leading diplomatic priority", Bloomberg News reported.

Earlier this month, Japanese media said that Beijing regards the South China Sea as its core interest, citing unnamed sources.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry didn't confirm the report.

"This is a new round of publicity for the 'China threat,'" said Shi Zhan, an expert of international studies at Beijing-based Foreign Affairs University. "It appears to be efforts by Western countries to paint China as becoming assertive and aggressive on the sea."

Beijing recently protested a joint military drill between the U.S. and the Republic of Korea, which had been scheduled for the Yellow Sea, a marine gateway to Beijing.

China's repeated protests prompted the two countries to hold the drill, which started on Sunday, on the Sea of Japan.

Shi said the Western media's hype of China's military buildup on the South China Sea--where several Southeast Asian nations have disputes with China--aims to provoke issues in China's relations with these nations.

The South China Sea has a spread of reefs, coral atolls and slender slivers of land that hardly qualify as habitable islands but for decades have been the subject of territorial disputes in the region. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and China have overlapping territorial claims in the area.

Reports of untapped oil and gas reserves have kept tensions up in the South China Sea, including the Xisha Islands and Nansha Islands, which are also on key shipping routes.

"Apparently, the U.S. wants to re-flex its muscle in Southeast Asia, a place it puts on the back burner during the George W. Bush era," Shi said. "Hype about a Chinese naval buildup serves the purpose of refocusing on the region. It would help prompt ASEAN countries to lean toward the U.S."

Affluent resources are part of the reason for the U.S. to put Southeast Asia higher on its diplomatic agenda, Chinese experts said.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines last week, ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said the South China Sea is part of a lifeline for all countries in the region, Bloomberg reported.

Up to 85 percent of energy sources for East Asian countries have to pass through the South China Sea, he said.

Chinese experts said Beijing's effort to build up its navy is well justified.

"China is a large country with huge marine resources, but it does not have enough power to protect the resources," said Guo Jiahua, an associate professor at the School of Politics and Public Administration, Guangdong Ocean University.

"Its South China Sea strategy should thus be seen as a move to make up for its past ignorance about sea power and not as an aggressive expansionist measure," Guo said.

To cope with mounting foreign pressure, China should emphasize its will to explore the resources on the disputed seas with its neighbors.

"Diplomatic efforts are needed to reiterate that China is willing to solve the South China Sea problems in a peaceful way and to jointly explore resources on disputed waters," Shi said.

(China Daily July 28, 2010)