2015年CRI 美国总统奥巴马对中国南海局势做出评论（在线收听）

"Maybe some of their claims are legitimate. But they shouldn't just try to establish that based on throwing elbows and pushing people out of the way."

US President Barack Obama making comments about the situation in the South China Sea earlier this week.

In response, Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, has sat down for a one-on-one interview with cable news channel CNN.

As part of the interview, Cui Tiankai says Chinese activities in the South China Sea are fully within the scope of the country's sovereignty, saying the projects are mainly for civilian purposes.

"I think the status quo has been changed by others for a long, long time, so what we are doing is to sort of restore the status quo as it should be."

One of the other queries addressed by Cui Tiankai is the suggestion of China establishing an Air Defense Identification Zone over the South China Sea.

He notes the US government was one of the first in the world to create an ADIZ.

"China certainly has the right to do the same. But whether we will do it or not will be based on our assessment on the situation and we'll certainly do it with caution."

Cui Tiankai does say he doesn't think the current situation in the South China Sea will end up in a military conflict, as some have suggested.

He says the common interests of both China and the U.S. far outweigh their differences, noting the two sides have been working closely on a number of major issues together, including climate change.

For CRI, I'm Zhao Jianfu.