But Beijing hit back at Harris' comments, saying that what was happening in Afghanistan "clearly reveals the US definition of rules and order".
Wang Wenbin, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, accused Washington of arbitrarily launching "military intervention in a country without shouldering the responsibility for the suffering of the people".
He added: "It gets to decide when it wants to come and leave without consulting the international community, not even its allies; it can wantonly smear, suppress, coerce and bully other countries for the sake of 'America First' without paying any price. This is the kind of order that the US wants."
Harris' short Southeast Asia tour, which will also include a visit to Vietnam, has been billed as an attempt by Washington to seek to restore ties in Asia that were strained during the Trump era, and to build a regional coalition of resistance against China's increasingly assertive territorial and security ambitions.
China asserts its right to almost all of the resource-rich waters of the South China Sea, whose fishing grounds, reefs and islands are also claimed by multiple Asian nations including the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Beijing's increasing swagger in the region has raised alarm that Beijing could gain control over shipping lanes through which trillions of dollars of trade pass annually, giving it coercive economic leverage over rival nations.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has also been accused of militarising the region, deploying anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles there, and of sanctioning aggressive tactics by its coastguard and navy to gain more territorial control, raising tensions in recent months.
But Harris' short Southeast Asia tour comes amid rising doubts in the region about US reliability after its withdrawal from Afghanistan triggered the dramatic fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban.
China has repeatedly sought to use the Afghan crisis to undermine America's credibility as a global power.
"VP Harris came to Southeast Asia to incite confrontation with China, claiming the US 'stands with' those countries," tweeted Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times, earlier this week.
"Does the US take Southeast Asian countries as idiots? Before sowing discords in Southeast Asia, the US should at least clean up the mess it left in Afghanistan."
