US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday urged China and the Philippines to exercise restraint and reduce tensions over their maritime dispute in the South China Sea. Instead, China proposes to overcome rising tensions in the South China Sea region and to maintain peace and stability through an ASEAN-China dialogue.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a foreign ministers’ meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that the “page of the South China Sea arbitration has been turned over”.
We can not believe that China, which disregards worldwide law, will seriously engage in the establishment of multinational rules.
Earlier, Cambodia was blamed for preventing ASEAN from reaching a consensus on the South China Sea, parts of which the Philippines claims as the West Philippine Sea.
We suspect that China is also drawing up a scenario to woo the Philippines, which has just undergone a change of administration, to set aside the ruling and hold talks.
China firmly opposes any proposition and action based on the award, Lu stressed.
If an agreement can not be reached, this will mark only the second time in ASEAN’s 49-year-history that it has deadlocked over issuing a statement, and the previous incident, in 2012, also involved Cambodia blocking a statement on the South China Sea.
The Philippines had not sought support from Asean or the global community in its arbitration case against Beijing over the South China Sea, and did not want to press the issue and risk dividing the group or provoking China, Manila’s Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay told Reuters yesterday.
China has been gradually expanding its power in the South China Sea in terms of military operations and fishing activities, moves that have led to a series of incidents related to territorial disputes in the area between China and several of the ASEAN members as well as Japan.
The Associated Press finds it “ironic” that ASEAN is basically irrelevant to this statement as its foreign ministers couldn’t agree on a position to take against China.
Port visits by USA warships to China are likely to restart following a visit in Beijing last week, Adm. John Richardson said Tuesday.
While the Asean foreign ministers did not include the arbitration ruling in their statement, it can not be considered as a diplomatic win for China, Yasay said.
At an ASEAN meeting on the same day, the bloc dropped any reference to the United Nations ruling in its joint statement.
“We likewise remain confident that through this military cooperation we would improve our joint humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts”, Andanar said in welcoming the decision.
The pair also discussed a U.N. Tribunal’s recent decision to reject China’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea. Apart from China and the Philippines, these involve Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
Philippines Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay told reporters in Vientiane that the dispute was not between China and the United States but between China and the Philippines.
This is ASEAN’s first deadlock since 2012, which was also had to do with Cambodia’s opposition to language regarding the South China Sea.
“We would like to pursue bilateral relationships in so far as the peaceful resolution of the dispute is concerned that is between the China and the Philippines”.
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“What we are pushing for is absolute support for rule of law, for the legal process, and for diplomacy to work out the differences that people have”.
