In Vientiane, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for an end to the “political manipulation and sensationalisation” of the South China Sea and reiterated a desire for the USA to help support a return to direct bilateral negotiations between Beijing and Manila. Implicit in the ruling is that China has no standing in its other disputes with Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam, which also are ASEAN members. The Philippines and Vietnam, both of which are ASEAN members, have been in a tense conflict with China over territorial rights to uninhabited islands in the South China Sea.
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BEIJING (AP) – U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice told Chinese officials that countries should work to reduce tensions in the South China Sea, but that the U.S. would continue to carry out the military operations there that have angered Beijing, a senior U.S. government official said Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters in Vientiane, Philippine Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay said the dispute was not a fight between China and the United States but between China and the Philippines.
The watered-down ASEAN statement is seen as a major diplomatic victory for Beijing.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday he supported the resumption of talks between China and the Philippines over the South China Sea, following an worldwide court ruling against Beijing over the dispute earlier this month. The Philippines was forced to resort to worldwide arbitration partly because it could not get any support from ASEAN in its dispute with China, which has used development aid and state-backed investments to divide the regional bloc.
The communique referred instead to the need to find peaceful resolutions to disputes in the South China Sea in accordance with worldwide law, including the United Nations’ law of the sea.
“We remain seriously concerned about recent and ongoing developments and took note of the concerns expressed by some ministers 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”, the ASEAN communique said.
“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”. Since its loss in the PCA ruling on the South Korea Sea, China has repeatedly stated that it does not plan to comply with the verdict, which it has called “waste paper”.
Wang Yi later told a news conference that the past three years show that the arbitration process did not end disputes “but stirred up regional tension and damaged regional stability”, and it is now time to “make corrections”. China has also accused Japan of interfering in the dispute.
Meanwhile, China and ASEAN also released the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.
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“The China-Japan relations are still vulnerable and unsatisfactory”, Wang told Fumio Kishida, Japan’s minister for foreign affairs.
