U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says he’s hopeful that China and its smaller neighbors can come to an effective resolution to territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It continues until Thursday.
Advertisement
China had said it did not want the South China Sea dispute raised at this week’s ASEAN meetings, but some ministers, including from host Malaysia, rebuffed that call, saying the issue was too important to ignore.
Quoting the US Council on Foreign Relations, he said Asean has the capacity to firmly establish itself as the essential regional organisation in Asia.
Neither China nor the United States are members of ASEAN, but both will be represented during several days of talks.
Washington has said it would call for a halt to aggressive actions by China and other rival nations to allow a diplomatic solution to a problem that threatens regional stability.
On Wednesday, Wang said the land reclamation had stopped.
The diplomat did not specify which countries were taking a hard line, but Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar traditionally ally with China within ASEAN. He urged those who questioned him to “just take an aeroplane to take a look”, Reuters reports.
Del Rosario has said the Philippines would halt its own land reclamation work if China would do so.
Japan wants to give planes to the Philippines that Manila could use for patrols in the South China Sea, sources said, a move that would deepen Tokyo’s security ties with the Southeast Asian nation most at odds with Beijing over the disputed waterway.
China says the outposts will have undefined military purposes, as well as help with maritime search and rescue, disaster relief and navigation. He did not elaborate.
“South China Sea is an issue”. “Within the face of the state of affairs, it’s much more pressing for ASEAN and China” to comply with the code of conduct.
China, Taiwan and ASEAN members the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei have wrangled over ownership and control of the South China Sea in a conflict that has flared on and off for decades.
Officials from Asean nations cautioned that there is a gap between pledges by China to defuse tensions and the situation on the ground.
He told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Li that the United States was concerned about China’s alleged large-scale land reclamation on islands in the sea and the “militarisation of features there”.
“Countries that are not in the region should respect the efforts made by China and ASEAN countries“, Wang told Kerry.
Nevertheless, Washington’s regional partners, including Malaysia, which is hosting this year’s gathering, insisted on making China’s building of island facilities a focus of the two-day summit, which concludes today.
Advertisement
China is already building a 3,000-meter runway on Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) Reef, which could ultimately be used for combat operations, according to the Center for Strategic and global Studies.
