The US on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Chinese companies and nationals who have taken up "illegal" construction projects in the South China Sea as part of Beijing's "expansionist agenda."China claims sovereignty over most parts of the resource-rich South China Sea, rejecting counterclaims of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan."Today, the Department of State will begin imposing visa restrictions" on Chinese individuals responsible for, or complicity in the large-scale reclamation, construction, or militarisation of disputed outposts in the South China Sea, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.Individuals coercing Southeast Asian claimants to inhibit their access to offshore resources will also be under the visa restrictions, Pompeo said.
These individuals, he said, will now be inadmissible into the United States, and their immediate family members may be subject to these visa restrictions as well.Further, the US Department of Commerce has added 24 Chinese state-owned enterprises to the 'Entity List', including several subsidiaries of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC).Pompeo said since 2013 China has used its state-owned enterprises to dredge and reclaim more than 3,000 acres on disputed features of the South China Sea, destabilising the region, trampling on the sovereign rights of its neighbouring countries, and causing untold environmental devastation.The CCCC has led the destructive dredging of China's South China Sea outposts and is also one of the leading contractors used by Beijing in its global "One Belt One Road" strategy, he said.The CCCC and its subsidiaries have engaged in corruption, predatory financing, environmental destruction, and other abuses across the world, Pompeo said.