To maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea, it is essential for the global community as a whole to share with Japan and the United States an awareness of the issues and apply continued pressure on China.
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China has displayed to ASEAN members a conciliatory approach to the South China Sea issue, which has suppressed the Japan-U.S. attempt to roll back support for Beijing.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has held bilateral talks with a number of world leaders on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Laos.
State media, including Global Times, a tabloid controlled by the official People’s Daily, on Friday described it as a diplomatic win for China while a senior diplomat declared that “the page had been turned over” regarding the July 12 ruling by an worldwide tribunal in The Hague that rebuked China’s historic claims in the South China Sea.
But, hours before the meeting, the Philippines’ Defense Ministry released photographs and a map showing what it said was an increased number of Chinese vessels near Scarborough Shoal, which China seized after a standoff in 2012.
“The landmark arbitration ruling in July, which is binding, helped clarify maritime rights in the region”, Obama told a summit of Asian leaders in Laos on Thursday.
“We discussed the importance of continuing to share information to prevent terrorism and the flow of foreign fighters”, said Obama.
Li owed peace and stability in that area over the past more than a decade to “effective regional rules” set in the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) agreed by China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in which concerned parties in any dispute should negotiate to settle it.
Asean, he said, is “key” to the USA rebalance to the Asia-Pacific policy.
Referring to man-made islands built by China, Abe expressed hope that China will “make good on its leader’s statement that it will not militarize them”.
Besides China, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei-all part of the 10-member ASEAN bloc-have competing claims in the South China Sea.
The use of the phrase “some leaders” in the two statements underscores the fundamental problem ASEAN has in dealing with China – not all its members are willing to scold Beijing.
China pulled out all the stops to block any reference to the words “recent activities”, “serious concern”, “reclamation”, “militarization”, “loss of trust” and “need to respect legal processes”, but failed as all these phrases made it into the statement, said a senior US administration official who requested anonymity to discuss diplomatic discussions.
The issue of ownership of territories in the South China Sea has come to dominate ASEAN summits in recent years.
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Beijing has rejected the ruling as a farce, and Manila has not actively tried to push its legal claim while Mr Duterte attempts to engineer a face-saving “soft landing” for both countries. More importantly for the Philippines, which brought the suit, it became “the only country with recognized rights instead of mere claims in the South China Sea”, as Teodoro Locsin Jr. put it.
