Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said on Saturday that China supports the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in playing a central role in regional cooperation and opposes intervention in regional affairs from outsider countries, especially big powers.
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Including a reference to the tribunal’s ruling in the final communique “is a hard issue that requires efforts of all parties”, said Tran Viet Thai, deputy director of the Institute of Strategic Studies, a Vietnamese government think-tank.
The regional bloc comprises of Myanmar, Brunei, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Staunch China ally Cambodia is preventing Southeast Asia from reaching a consensus on the South China Sea after an global tribunal rejected Beijing’s territorial claims to the waters, a diplomat said on Saturday.
On Tuesday, Duterte assured USA lawmakers who visited him in Malacañang that he has no plans to negotiate with China over the territorial dispute after Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay rejected China’s offer to pursue bilateral talks on the condition that the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration favoring the Philippines be set aside.
They will also attend a meeting with the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, and meetings between ASEAN Foreign Ministers and the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN Dialogue Partners or ASEAN+1, ASEAN Plus Three, East Asia Summit, and ASEAN Regional Forum or ARF.
Yasay Jr. will attend the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) and Related Meetings from July 23 to 26, 2016 in Vientiane, Lao PDR.
The US official said it was important that ASEAN members “speak out and represent what common ground they found on issues”, including the South China Sea, as they negotiate wording for a joint statement at the end of the meeting.
While the agenda of the meetings is extensive, the focus behind the scenes is expected to be on the July 12 decision by a Hague-based tribunal in a dispute between China and the Philippines.
“Moreover, this declaration made by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative, on behalf of the 28-member bloc, did not directly name China”, he points out in his article for Asia Times, adding that Brussels failed to issue an “immediate” and “more strongly-worded” statement because it was reportedly blocked by Croatia, Hungary and Greece.
Lu said Taiwan is the one to suffer amid a wrestling match between China and the US over South China Sea issues, quoting an African proverb: “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers”.
The issue has dominated the Asean meeting.
A major diplomatic test starts Sunday in Laos at a three-day meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers that will include sessions with their Chinese and USA counterparts. Communist-ruled Laos also has close links with Beijing and has been accused of preventing a united front on the South China Sea issue. Subsequently Malaysia uploaded a statement showing concern of ASEAN over developments in the South China Sea but had to remove from the website under pressure from China.
He will also engage in bilateral meetings at the sidelines of the AMM.
“Basically, Asean members want the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – UNCLOS – to be upheld as a rule-based practice in the region”, a senior official said on condition of anonymity.
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Yet there are already questions over Laos’ hosting of the event.
