The US welcomes the cooperation with China, said US Defense Secretary James Mattis in Singapore on Saturday, US Defense Department press service reported.

“The U.S. strategy recognizes no one nation can or should dominate the Indo-Pacific,” the statement said.

According to Mattis, he will visit China in the near future.

“Of course, we recognize any sustainable Indo-Pacific order, as a role for China, and at China's invitation, I will travel to Beijing soon, in our open transparent approach to broadening and deepening the national dialogue between our two Pacific nations,” he said in a statement.

The sides are expected to discuss the situation in the South China Sea, the minister said.

“Yet China's policy in the South China Sea stands in stark contrast to the openness of our strategy,” the statement said.

According to him, China's militarization of artificial features in the South China Sea includes the deployment of anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles, electronic jammers, and more recently, the landing of bomber aircraft at Woody Island.

“Despite China's claims to the contrary, the placement of these weapons systems is tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion.  China's militarization of the Spratlys is also in direct contradiction to President Xi's 2015 public assurances in the White House Rose Garden that they would not do this,” Mattis noted.