A dozen members of Asia’s top security forum raised concerns yesterday about maritime security issues including sensitive territorial claims in the South China Sea, putting an irked China on the defensive, diplomats said.
China has long-standing disagreements with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam — all ASEAN members — over boundary claims which have sparked deadly naval clashes.
Twelve of the 27 members of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), including the four ASEAN members involved in disputes, the US, the EU on and Indonesia, raised maritime issues in a discussion yesterday, underscoring concern for security on the region’s seas and support for a multilateral approach.
Beijing has insisted on handling the disputes on a one-on-one basis rather than multilaterally.
One senior ASEAN diplomat said the issue of the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea had been raised explicitly, as well as concerns about China’s military buildup, marked by the rapid modernization of its navy.
“The discussion was quiet tense at one point. China ended up on the defensive,” said the diplomat, who declined to be identified.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) was “clearly exasperated,” the envoy said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the US had “a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia’s maritime commons, and respect for international law in the South China Sea,” and expressed support for a “collaborative diplomatic process.”
“We oppose the use or threat of force by any claimant,” she said in prepared remarks for the forum.
She later said the conversation was “very productive.”
A second diplomat with knowledge of the discussion said Yang responded with “a very strong and emotional statement essentially suggesting that this was a pre-planned mobilization on this issue ... He was distinctly not happy.”
Yang declined to discuss details of the meeting with the media.
“I expressed the position, the consistent position, of the Chinese side,” he said.
A senior US official said that during a sideline meeting between Clinton and Yang, the Chinese side insisted disputes should be handled bilaterally and resisted the idea of taking up in a multilateral forum.
Diplomats said Vietnam had been lobbying neighbors to raise maritime security and territorial issues in response to what some have described as a “divide and conquer” strategy by China in handling South China Sea disputes.
Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales, said the fact so many participants raised the issue, and the US had come out strongly, represented a major development for the ARF, often derided as a talk shop.
“This is a diplomatic challenge to China,” he said by telephone. “China has been able to use that forum to back its own policies almost unimpeded, and now it’s probably looking back and realizing what thin ice it was on.”
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