ASEAN issues, retracts, tough statement on South China Sea

A J-10AY of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) fighter aircraft and crew are on alert at Chengdu airbase.

ASEAN countries had agreed on the contents of the statement, which included the “common stance of ASEAN member states on the issue of the South China Sea” and their positive assessment of the meeting outcomes, foreign ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said on Thursday, in an email reply to questions from Channel NewsAsia.

IT WAS meant to be a showcase of regional amity, celebrating a quarter-century of dialogue between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

But some officials believed that the prepared statement was retracted because Laos was not agreeable to it at the last minute.

Along with China and the Philippines, four other governments – Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam – also claim islands and reefs falling within the nine-dash line, while Indonesia has expressed concern about the Chinese boundary also overlapping its exclusive economic zone.

However, no updated joint statement was later issued and the spokeswoman said countries would now issue individual statements.

The debacle is “a very bad omen and it’s going to ratchet up the tensions”, between ASEAN and China, predicted professor Thitinan, the veteran ASEAN specialist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

That phrase is “a direct rebuke to China’s position that the dispute is not a matter between Asean and China”, said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

The retracted statement warned that recent actions in the disputed sea had the potential to undermine peace.

ASEAN-China relations and the East Sea issue dominated a special meeting of foreign ministers of ASEAN and China in Kunming, in the Chinese province of Yunnan on June 14. An amended statement has not been released.

Asean officials have already agreed on a statement, drafted by Singapore as country coordinator to relations with China, to be issued at the Kunming meeting. He referred inquiries to the ministry’s Asean department, which didn’t answer calls.

“Our cooperation is bigger than our differences; our opportunities are bigger than our challenges; our solidarity is bigger than our problems. So by the time it was released, there was agreement”. “Western media’s insane thoughts”.

“We emphasized the importance of non-militarization and self-restraint in the conduct of all activities, including land reclamation, which may raise tensions in the South China Sea”. The Philippines opened a case with the tribunal in 2013 to challenge China’s claims.

Meanwhile, Chinese ambassadors and diplomats have been lobbying across the globe for support for Beijing’s position that the dispute should be resolved through bilateral talks, and claims to have found wide backing in Africa. The tensions go to the heart of a strategic rivalry between the United States, overseer of the region’s security network for decades, and a rising China intent on becoming the region’s dominant power.

China has long argued that historical documents prove the legitimacy of its claim to the South China Sea, but mainland researchers have also been looking overseas for supporting evidence.

The South China Sea is rich in natural resources. China is the largest trading partner for the grouping.

Defense ministers from the bloc were unable to agree on a declaration after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur in November.

“It was finalised just before the foreign ministers meeting”. China says the Singaporeans simply have the wrong end of the stick, but shows little real interest in what has interested ASEAN for years: a binding code of conduct, including, for example, a building ban, to avoid conflict in the sea. As for Cambodia, its Foreign Ministry did not even issue a post-meeting statement regarding their bilateral meeting with China.

The statement from the 10-nation regional bloc expressed “serious concerns over recent and ongoing developments” in the strategic waterway, saying those had “eroded trust and confidence”.

Thailand’s foreign ministry, queried by correspondents in Bangkok for a statement, said it had “noted the requests” but hours later still had not issued any comment.