The United States stepped up its rhetoric and maybe its game Monday in a condemnation of what it called China’s unlawful bullying in the South China Sea.

“Beijing uses intimidation to undermine the sovereign rights of Southeast Asian coastal states in the South China Sea, bully them out of offshore resources, assert unilateral dominion and replace international law with ‘might makes right,’ ” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

The hawkish Pompeo said the world “will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire” and that America “stands with our Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting the sovereign rights to offshore resources.”

China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines claim parts of the South China Sea, through which $3.37 trillion in global trade passes annually. Maritime run-ins with China over resources and territory are increasing.

Pompeo’s statement is sure to infuriate China, which has not only reclaimed thousands of acres of land to build militarized outposts in a huge swath of the South China Sea it claims as its own, but also is setting its sights on World War II-steppingstone islands in Oceania with economic investment and influence.

Denny Roy, an expert on Asia Pacific security issues at the East-West Center in Honolulu, said Pompeo’s comments are not a seismic shift but are a “stronger, more forthright orienting of our approach to the South China Sea.”

The Chinese have been signaling that the South China Sea issue “is not going away for us. We’re not going to reduce our effort. We’re not going to bulldoze over the bases that we built on reclaimed land,’ ” Roy said.

“The future is more and more Chinese effort to enforce (their) claims,” Roy said. “So it’s a question to the United States — are you going to concede or raise your game? This to me is an indication that we’re going in the opposite direction of conceding.”

Pompeo’s language suggests that the United States is going to make a stronger effort to defend international law in the South China Sea, Roy said.

In 2016 the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague released a key legal decision on the South China Sea. In a case brought by the Philippines, the tribunal determined that a “nine-dash line” described by China in its claims on much of the region, along with its land reclamation and other activities in Philippine waters, were illegal.

“Today we are aligning the U.S. position” on China’s claims in the South China Sea “with the tribunal’s decision,” Pompeo said.

Roy said Pompeo’s comments represent a rhetorical aspect of that effort and it remains to be seen if that will be followed up “by a more physical activity” aspect.

That might include stronger pressure on U.S. friends and partners in the region to reinforce the message by undertaking their own version of “freedom of navigation” operations near disputed territory, Roy said.

Although he doesn’t anticipate it, Roy said “the extreme version of what might happen would be the United States will start to treat certain Chinese behavior in the South China Sea as outlaw behavior — aggression against friendly countries.”

In April and May, when Malaysia contracted the drillship West Capella for exploration in the South China Sea within China’s nine-dash line, China dispatched the survey vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 and coast guard and paramilitary vessels.

The United States, in turn, sent littoral combat ships and B-1 bombers and the Navy announced that its submarines out of Guam were on patrol.

In mid-April, the amphibious assault ship USS America sailed with other U.S. warships and Australian frigate HMAS Parramatta in the South China Sea, “signaling U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific to allies and partners in the region,” the Navy said.

Pompeo in June met in Hawaii at Hickam Field with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, for closed-door talks.

More recently, speaking to the Brussels Forum 2020, Pompeo said “there were no major breakthroughs.”

He noted “provocative military actions” by the People’s Liberation Army, including “continued aggression in the South China Sea, deadly border confrontations in India, an opaque nuclear program and threats against peaceful neighbors.”

At the meeting in Hawaii, “I think we were able to make clear some of the actions that the United States is prepared to take,” Pompeo said.

He said the Chinese were told that “this isn’t the United States confronting China — that the world is now confronting China. … The challenges in the South China Sea — this isn’t the United States and the United States alone. It’s a dozen-plus Southeast Asian countries and Asian countries who understand the threat.”