US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday sharply criticised China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful actions” in the dispute over territorial claims in the South China Sea. These had “injured people, harmed vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolution of disputes,” Blinken said in the Laotian capital Vientiane at the summit of heads of state and government of the organization’s members. Founded in 1967, ASEAN is a political and economic union of ten countries in South-East Asia, with a combined population of some 600 million people. Blinken was respond…