Though US has no direct maritime territory disputes with China, it is seriously threatening China's marine rights especially over the South China Sea, the Diaoyu Islands and Taiwan, experts said at a forum on China marine rights held by the news magazine Motherland under China Federation of Patriotic Projects over weekend.

The US has continuously threatened China's maritime rights in more than 100 years and restricted China with their military alliance, said Major General Wu Guifu, also a former deputy chief of the research department at the National University of Defense Technology, at the forum.

The US rebalance to Asia over the next four years aims to build an island chain starting from Japan, South Korea, crossing China's Taiwan Straits, South China Sea, the Philippines and Singapore, ending in Australia, which is a chain to block China, said Wu. 

The US uses every method to incite China's neighboring counties, including Vietnam and the Philippines, to create disputes with China in a bid to slow down China's economy, Li Jie, a researcher with a marine military institute, claimed. 

As well as depending on South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and US other south-eastern Asia alliance countries, the US persuaded Vietnam and India to join the alliance to maintain the US position and restrict China, Wu said.

The US restricts China's expansion of its maritime space making it difficult for the Chinese mainland to solve the Taiwan question. Hidden risks still exist in direct confrontation between the US and the Chinese mainland over Taiwan, he said.

"Japan secretly supports Taiwanese 'independence,' and forcedly occupied the Diaoyu Islands and built Japan-US military alliance and positively ropes in other countries in their diplomacy, threats and restrictions on our marine rights," Wu said.

"We have disputes on sea borders, sovereignty of islands and development and the utilization of marine resources with several countries," Wu said. "These countries including Vietnam and the Philippines are getting greedier. We have no other choice but maintaining for our rights."

China has border disputes with several countries including Japan and South Korea on setting the borderlines on continental shelves, said Liu Nanlai, a professor with the international law institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In the South China Sea, some small islands claimed by China have been occupied by other counties. If their claims are recognized, they could use them as a basis for their territorial waters, Liu said.

"If the disputes on these islands couldn't be solved, making the borderlines can't be solved," Liu said. "There will be no peaceful days in South China Sea and will do harm to China."

On December 14, China presented to the UN Secretariat its Partial Submission Concerning the Outer Limits of the Continental Shelf beyond 200 Nautical Miles in the East China Sea, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

South Korea has formally submitted a claim to an extended portion of continental shelf in the East China Sea to the UN, the foreign ministry of South Korea said Thursday, Xinhua reported.

Japan asked for the UN to oppose China submitting its plan on outer limits on the East China Sea in September, according to local media.