Ties turned frosty when new President Rodrigo Duterte insulted US counterpart Barack Obama on Monday, prompting the cancellation of a meeting between them.
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To secure an effective code of conduct that respects the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, it is necessary for all relevant countries, including Japan, the United States and Australia, to provide indirect support for ASEAN.
“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.
Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said yesterday it had been “inappropriate” for two countries, which he did not name, to bring up the arbitration issue during the summit.
“This page on the arbitration has always been turned”.
At the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit being held between September 6 and 8, Obama called the results of an worldwide arbitration that denied Beijing’s “historic claims” to the South China Sea, “binding”, and promised more diplomatic and economic cooperation in the region, Voice of America (VOA) reported on September 8.
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.
The leaders stressed the need for ASEAN members and China to ensure the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, signed by the grouping and China in 2002, in its entirety.
Those waters, home to rich fisheries and oil-and-gas reserves and through which US$5 trillion in trade flow each year, are claimed nearly in its entirety by Beijing.
A joint statement after the Tuesday summit said it “took note of the concerns expressed by some leaders on the land reclamations and escalation of activities in the area, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions and may undermine peace, security and stability in the region”.
Li reaffirmed China’s objection to the South China Sea arbitration, citing China’s right under United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to settling disputes primarily through dialogue and consultation.
Though Beijing recently announced a $600 million aid package to ally Cambodia, China was unable to get it to block the statement, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss diplomatic discussions.
While recent tensions have been centered on the South China Sea disputes, where six different countries have mutually overlapping claims, Japan has its own disagreements with China over the Senkaku islets in the East China Sea.
The Chinese government also lauded the steps taken this week at the ASEAN meetings in Laos to address issues in the South China Sea.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith said that the summits were successful.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte made headlines earlier in the summit with a phrase directed at a journalist, which roughly translates to “son of a whore”, often used in the same manner as “crap”, which was misinterpreted as a “personal attack” on Obama.
