A US congressman is urging Australia, the US, the UK, ASEAN nations and other key allies to tame China's aggressive behaviour by choosing to do manufacturing business elsewhere.
Ted Yoho, a Republican from Florida, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee a powerful bloc of western and Asian nations needed to come together to rebuff China before it was too late.
"If you do not stand up today as a bloc is it going to be possible three years from now?" Yoho asked the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington DC on Tuesday.
"It is not just ASEAN standing up.
"It will be the US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, the French, Australia, Japan, South Korea and India.
"If we do not stand up to China today it will not be possible."
The House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing titled "China's Maritime Ambitions".
Yoho said the bloc of nations should do their manufacturing anywhere but China.
"We are paying them and they are creating the money that we are fighting against and I think it is time the world wakes up," he said.
Democrat Ami Bera told the hearing China's aggressive actions included the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel chasing a Japanese fishing boat in Japanese waters and Chinese fishing boats swarming Indonesian waters.
"These actions pose serious threats to regional stability and this is not what you see out of a responsible global leader," Bera said.
"China has to make that decision.
"Does it want to be a responsible global leader or will it be a nation that sits apart?"
Australian Associated Press
