But the draft of a statement to be issued in Vientiane, Laos, tiptoed around the regional strains caused by competing claims to areas of the strategically important sea.
Advertisement
“What I can tell you is that the situation in waters near Huangyan Island remains unchanged and China hasn’t made any new moves”, Hua said in Beijing, using the shoal’s Chinese name.
A UN-backed tribunal ruled in July that China’s claims to most of the sea had no legal basis and that its construction of artificial islands in the disputed waters was illegal.
“The landmark arbitration ruling in July, which is binding, helped to clarify maritime rights in the region”, Obama told Southeast Asian leaders at a summit in Laos.
“We are gravely concerned”, he said.
Presently, China is working with the ASEAN nations to formulate a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC).
The Foreign Ministry of China released a statement later on Wednesday about the meeting in which Li was paraphrased as saying China wants to work with ASEAN countries in “dispelling interference. and properly handling the South China Sea issue”.
China claims much of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually.
China’s growing presence in the maritime area has sparked protests from other claimant countries, with the Philippines filing a case with an global arbitration tribunal which ruled that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas.
The other ASEAN nations are Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. ASEAN leaders at their earlier summit on Tuesday expressed concern over China’s island-building.
China has over the past year alarmed other claimants, and outside powers such as the United States and Japan, by re-claiming land on several disputed reefs through dredging, and building air fields and port facilities.
The agreement to develop the hotline, reported by the Wall Street Journal, came as regional leaders at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Vientiane, Laos, avoided mentioning the ruling of an worldwide tribunal in July rejecting China’s sovereignty claims over disputed territory in the South China Sea.
The U.S. military has also expressed concerns over the possibility that China might turn Scarborough into another island, something that would give Beijing’s forces control over a swathe of the South China Sea used as a passageway to the Taiwan Strait.
Obama’s emphasis on the ruling being “binding” will undoubtedly attract a strong reaction from China, which has argued the United States has no role to play in the dispute.
The East Asia bloc was expected to urge all parties to follow worldwide law, but otherwise release a muted statement on the South China Sea.
The United States says it has no position on the territorial disputes but wants to ensure freedom of navigation. To press that point, it has conducted patrols near Chinese-held islands.
Although the Scarborough Shoal is merely a few rocks poking above the sea, it is important to the Philippines because of the fish stocks in the area.
When asked why there was no mention of the tribunal ruling in the joint statements, the Prime Minister said the ruling couldn’t be enforced because “there is no provision to enforce unless both parties go to arbitration and they agree on the terms of arbitration”. China has refused to recognise the ruling.
But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China has not done anything to alter the circumstances surrounding the shoal.
“We believed that this is precursor to possible building of structures on the shoal”, spokesman Arsenio Andolong said, adding that China’s denial was “even more disturbing”.
The bloc traditionally shies away from taking a position on thorny diplomatic issues, especially where China is concerned, because of its influence in the region and the need to balance ties with the United States.
Advertisement
A spectacular sideshow in Laos this week has been a spat between Obama and the acid-tongued Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose nations are longtime allies.
