The annual gathering gathered defense ministers of the 10 ASEAN countries, plus those from Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russian Federation and the United States.
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Divisions within Asia over China’s claims in the disputed South China Sea spilled over Wednesday to a meeting of US and Asian defense ministers, where China insisted the group make no public mention of the strategic waters in a joint declaration intended as a public display of unity.
Press TV has interviewed Richard Becker, a political commentator in San Francisco, about the United States sending a warship very close to China’s islands in disputed waters of South China Sea.
Mr Carter and the Malaysian minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, have been attending a regional defence ministers’ meeting in Malaysia, along with the Chinese defence chief, where differences over the South China Sea surfaced.
U.S. officials said China had lobbied members for the issue to be left out of the traditional closing statement.
China claims sovereignty on nearly all of the South China Sea which is firmly opposed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Speaking at a university in the Chinese capital, Adm. Harry Harris Jr. cited a recent statement by U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter that the global order “faces challenges from Russian Federation and, in a different way, from China, with its ambiguous maritime claims”.
The US defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations over the meeting’s final statement were ongoing.
During a joint news conference on Monday, Han, when asked about the South China Sea, called for freedom of navigation, and said: “We … have asked to refrain from any action that threatens the peace and stability of this area”.
The Asean summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, also involves counterparts from the United States and China.
They “tried to forcefully stuff in content to the joint declaration”, and the responsibility for failing to come up with a joint statement was completely with those countries, the ministry said in a microblog post.
As proceedings began in Malaysia early Wednesday officials said China was threatening to withhold its endorsement of a joint statement typically signed at the conclusion of such meetings because other nations wanted to include language pertaining to the territorial disputes.
US officials claimed the move was meant to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
Carter and Chang met for about 40 minutes, longer than expected, the USA defense officials said.
However, Chang “did not say anything about war”, said one of the three defense officials who briefed reporters on the meeting with Carter.
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“The Teddy Roosevelt’s presence there and our visit is a symbol of our commitment to a rebalance and the importance of the Asia Pacific to the United States”, Carter said. The islands in the SCS have been China’s territory since ancient times and are the heritage of the Chinese ancestors, and China has no need to demonstrate its sovereignty over the islands by construction, he was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.
