US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter arrived in eastern Malaysia today, from where he was due to fly out to an American aircraft carrier in the South China Sea.
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The USA official said “a number of ASEAN countries felt that (it) was inappropriate” to exclude mention of the islands impasse from an official statement.
Carter’s visit to the USS Theodore Roosevelt with Malaysian Minister of Defense Hishammuddin Hussein came just over a week after the USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, challenged territorial limits around one of China’s artificial islands in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) with a so-called freedom-of-navigation patrol.
The South China Sea was in sharp focus during the conclave in Malaysia, following the outrage caused in Beijing over the conduct of a USA naval patrol last month within 12 nautical miles of the Zhubi reef, which China considers sovereign territory.
Plans for a ceremonial joint statement at the end of a Southeast Asian regional defense forum were dropped on Wednesday after differences between China and the United States over the mention of disputes in the South China Sea in the document.
The ADMM-Plus groups the 10 countries of Southeast Asia and eight other countries – Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russian Federation and the US.
The USA and the Japanese wanted the meeting to issue a statement affirming their commitment to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which Washington believes is threatened by China’s construction of man-made islands.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter of the United States had a forty-minute meeting with the defense minister of China, Chang Wanquan, recently.
Beijing insists it has sovereignty over almost all of the strategic waterway, through which about one-third of the world’s traded oil passes and whose seabed contains coveted energy and mineral deposits. Several Asia-Pacific countries, including China, are involved in those disputes.
“Our efforts include joint military exercises in areas such as disaster response and humanitarian assistance, training and capacity building in areas such as navigational safety and cyber security, exchange of perspectives and cooperation on counter terrorism and support for ASEAN-led initiatives for security cooperation, ” he said.
In the chairman’s statement, Hishammuddin said the meeting “noted the importance of the effective implementation of the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and the early conclusion of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea, in order to build mutual trust and confidence and maintain peace, security and stability in the region”.
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He said that “our concerns are more real… unintended accidents at the high sea, which can spiral into something worse and that we must avoid”. According to Chinese state news outlet Xinhua, “the US navy will host receptions, picnics, as well as sporting events for Chinese crew members”.
