Amid flared up tension between China and the US, Beijing on Thursday accused Washington of becoming “the biggest driver of militarisation” in the South China Sea.

China claims the majority of the South China Sea, invoking its so-called nine-dash line to justify its alleged historic rights to the key trade waterway, while Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan also claim parts of the region.

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Addressing an online meeting of foreign ministers from Southeast Asian countries, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “the United States is becoming the biggest driver of militarisation of the South China Sea.” US-China rivalry is expected to dominate discussion at this year’s ASEAN conference, which comes just days after Beijing launched ballistic missiles in the flashpoint waters as part of live-fire exercises.

Accusing the US of ‘creating and seeking profit from’ South China Sea, Yu said that China’s greatest interest in the waters was “peace and stability.”

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“The United States is becoming the most dangerous factor damaging peace in the South China Sea,” Yi added, according to state news agency Xinhua.

China has reinforced its claim to the South China Sea by building up small shoals and reefs into military bases with airstrips and port facilities. It rejected a 2016 UN-backed tribunal’s ruling that its claims were without legal basis.

This year’s ASEAN summit is the first meeting since the US announced sanctions on two dozen Chinese companies over Beijing’s construction of artificial islands in the disputed waters, which Beijing blasted as “tyrannical”.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the Chinese Communist Party this week of being engaged in a “clear and intensifying pattern of bullying its neighbours.”