- China and its neighbors have competing claims for islands in the region
- The United States says it doesn't take sides in the territorial disputes
- But China has expressed anger over U.S. comments on the issue
- Clinton will have to negotiate these tensions when she arrives in Beijing
Hong Kong (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to arrive in Beijing on Tuesday for a visit likely to be dominated by the competing maritime claims of China and its neighbors in the region.
Tensions over territorial disputes have spiked this year between China and a string of countries around its coastline -- from Vietnam in the southwest to Japan in the northeast -- and the United States has been drawn into the fray.
In Indonesia on Monday, Clinton reiterated that "the United States does not take a position on competing territorial claims over land." Instead, the U.S. government is pressing China and other countries in the region to agree to a code of conduct and procedures for resolving disagreements peacefully.
But Beijing, which prefers to tackle the disputes bilaterally, has reacted angrily to Washington's involvement in the matter, accusing the U.S. State Department of "unfounded accusations" and showing a "total disregard of facts."
The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper affiliated with the ruling Communist Party, said in an editorial published Tuesday that Clinton's diplomacy in the region "has fomented frictions between China and some surrounding countries."
It called on her to "reflect upon the deep harm she is bringing to the Sino-US relationship."
When Clinton arrives in Beijing on Tuesday evening, she will have to negotiate such Chinese hostility to U.S. efforts to address the tangle of tensions across the South China Sea and beyond.
Countries like Vietnam and the Philippines lay claim to some areas of the South China Sea, a 1.3 million square mile patch of the Pacific Ocean dotted with hundreds of largely uninhabited islands and coral atolls. But China has declared "indisputable sovereignty" over large swathes of the area, which is rich in marine life.
The stakes are raised further by estimates that potentially huge reserves of natural gas and oil lie underneath the seabed.
The scope for conflict was demonstrated in April when a Philippine Navy vessel confronted Chinese fishing boats in a remote rocky outcrop claimed by both countries.
The resulting naval standoff between the two countries lasted for more than three months and aroused fears of an open conflict before the Philippines withdrew its ships in June, citing stormy weather. The issue of who the lagoon belongs to remains unresolved.
Analysts have expressed pessimism that the disputes in the South China Sea will be defused soon.
"While the likelihood of major conflict remains low, all of the trends are in the wrong direction, and prospects of resolution are diminishing," the International Crisis Group said in a July report.
Tensions have also flared recently over a long-running dispute concerning a group of islands in the East China Sea claimed by China, Japan and Taiwan.
Furious anti-Japan protests erupted across China last month when a Japanese group sailed to one of the disputed islets and symbolically waved Japanese flags.
And on Sunday, the controversial governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, dispatched a team to survey the islands as part of an effort to purchase them from the private owners. Chinese state-run media immediately declared the survey "illegal."
The uninhabited islands are known in Japan as Senkaku and in China as Diaoyu, and are privately-owned by a Japanese family.
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