New Delhi, Aug. 6: Two statements by junior foreign minister V.K. Singh last week backing Manila over Beijing in a major maritime dispute are threatening to cloud a visit by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, adding to a series of spats already pockmarking India’s relationship with its largest neighbour.

India has repeatedly advocated diplomacy and the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where Beijing is locked in territorial disputes with seven neighbours that have escalated over the past three years.

But for the first time, India last week criticised China specifically over a bilateral dispute with the Philippines over a slice of the sea that both claim, after a UN tribunal at The Hague declared Beijing’s claim over the disputed waters untenable.

China has refused to accept the order of the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s tribunal set up to decide on the dispute with the Philippines under the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS).

Wang, who will meet foreign minister Sushma Swaraj here on August 13, is now expected to articulate China’s unhappiness over India treading for the first time into what Beijing considers a strictly bilateral dispute with the Philippines, senior Chinese officials have told The Telegraph.

“India has noted the award of the arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the 1982 UNCLOS in the matter concerning the Philippines and China,” Singh had told a meeting of the foreign ministers of the East Asia Summit in Vientiane, Laos, on July 26.

“As a state party to UNCLOS, India urges all parties to show utmost respect for the UNCLOS, which establishes the international legal order of the seas and oceans.”

Singh had delivered a near-identical jab at China the previous day, when meeting the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which includes Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

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