China says South China Sea reclamation stopped

The issue was a hot topic at the annual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers this Tuesday.

“Freedom of navigation and overflight are among the essential pillars of worldwide maritime law”.

The official said Kerry told Wang that while Washington did not take a position on sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, it wanted to see them resolved peacefully and in accordance with worldwide law.

Beijing said that the two sides have agreed to adopt a dual-track approach in resolving the South China Sea issue. Fellow South China Sea claimants, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, are more strenuously contesting Chinese claims – most visibly via Manila’s ongoing arbitration case in The Hague.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was also present at the meeting, joining some 15 other ministers from East Asian nations.

“There’s so much else to discuss. It’s in neither country’s interests to allow this to affect the broader picture”, Ruan said.

China has halted reclamation work in the South China Sea, the country’s foreign minister said on Wednesday, at a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers where the disputed waters have taken centre stage.

FILE – The alleged on-going reclamation of Subi Reef by China is seen from Pag-asa Island in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, western Palawan Province, Philippines, May 11, 2015. However, construction of facilities in artificial islands will continue.

“In my meeting with…”

Kishida and Kerry met on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. “It is a beginning, and it may open up some opportunity for conversation on this in the months ahead”.

These allegations have intensified the tensions over these strategic waters that contain some of the world’s most heavily used shipping routes, raising the danger of triggering a US-China war, whether by deliberate provocation or miscalculation.

The U.S. secretary of state said the easiest thing would be for all claimants not to do anything on the disputed islets and reefs except “routine maintenance” while the legal process is resolved “in order to give certainty to everybody”.

“The paragraph relating to the South China Sea is causing some problems”, he said, adding there was “no consensus on how the paragraph ought to be”.

“China has already stopped. Furthermore, the region would be glad to see genuine proof of sincerity”, he said.

Gen. Singh said the oceans in the Asia-Pacific region were a critical enabler of “our prosperity and of our growing interdependence”. Experts said that this airstrip will give Beijing greater reach into the heart of maritime Southeast Asia because of its length enough to accommodate most Chinese military aircrafts, according to Yahoo News.

But Malaysia Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said member nations agreed that “exercising self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate tension must be enhanced” in the South China Sea.

Members states had wrangled hard before finally agreeing on the wording of the document.

The U.S. describes China’s Island program as “problematic actions” and is particularly concerned, according to the Wall Street Journal, about an airbase that appears to be being built on one island, setting up a military base in the area to assert control, or what is referred to as an air-defense identification zone, over the region.

“Competing claims are not going to be resolved any time soon, so it is important for ASEAN to present a united front”, the diplomat said.