Changing position on China's claims over the South China Sea would shame its ancestors, while not facing up to infringements of Chinese sovereignty there would shame its children, Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said.
China has become increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, building artificial islands in areas over which the Philippines and other countries have rival claims, sparking alarm regionally and in Washington.
"A thousand years ago, China was a large sea-faring nation. So of course China was the first country to discover, use and administer the Nansha Islands," Wang said Saturday, using the Chinese term for the Spratly Islands, which together with the Paracel Islands form the bulk of China's claims.