In comments that were seen as a veiled attack on the United States, a senior Chinese politician ­defended Beijing’s right to build facilities on artificial islands in the South China Sea.

Coming after the PLA Navy staged combat exercises in the Western Pacific and the after a US aircraft carrier group was sent to the disputed waters, the remarks on Thursday by Wang Guoqing, spokesman for the country’s top political advisory body, assumes significance.

While Washington has been accusing Beijing of militarising and obstructing freedom of navigation in the waters through its construction activities, the South China sea and related maritime issues have seen a bitter war of words being waged between China and the US in the past few years.

But Wang dismissed such criticism as “much ado about nothing” without naming any particular nation.

“Though peace reigns over the land, the stupid people create trouble for themselves,” Wang said before the opening of the ­annual session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

“As the world’s largest trader and the country with the most coastline along the South China Sea, we care about the safety and freedom of navigation more than any other country,” he said. The facilities that China had built had contributed to navigational safety and rescue efforts and were necessary for defence, he added.

Last week, reportedly patrolling in the waters in the disputed sea was the US Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group. And Xinhua reported that yesterday, conducting exercises with a Chinese naval fleet in the area were a number of PLA Navy bombers, jet fighters and early warning aircraft which flew east through international airspace above the Miyako Strait near Japan’s Okinawa Island.

And before going through the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines, the Liaoning aircraft carrier passing through the Miyako Strait last year indicated that China had stepped up its naval presence in the Western Pacific.

US officials said last week that appearing to have been designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles, China had nearly finished building almost two dozen structures on artificial islands in the South China Sea. And after US President Donald Trump’s pledge to increase the defence budget, the US presence in the waters will be strengthened, analysts say.

China and the US were in a “dilemma” over the South China Sea, Teng Jianqun, from the China Institute of International Studies, said.

“I don’t think the US will compromise on freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, while China is trying to become a maritime power,” he said.

With gross domestic product expanding by 6.7 per cent last year despite the global economic downturn, China still had one of the world’s fastest rates of economic growth, Wang also said.

“We definitely have reason to believe that China will remain the strongest engine in the world’s economy in the new year,” he said.

(Adapted from CNBC & China Morning Post)