Increasingly tense territorial rows in the Asia-Pacific region threaten the global economy, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned yesterday at the end of an APEC leaders’ summit plagued by divisions.
The annual gathering of APEC heads was meant to build goodwill and long-term efforts to tear down trade barriers within the bloc, which accounts for more than half of the world’s economic output.
While progress was made on cutting tariffs on environmentally friendly goods and commitments renewed to fight protectionism, bitter territorial disputes disrupted the two-day event in Russia’s port city of Vladivostok.
Photo: CNA
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) did not hold customary talks on the summit sidelines because of a row. Similarly, Noda and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak — both allies of Washington — shunned each other.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III also failed to meet with Hu, after declaring it his top priority beforehand.
The Philippines and China have endured months of bruising diplomacy over competing claims to the South China Sea — of which Beijing claims almost all — including a maritime standoff.
“Now is the time for everyone to make efforts to reduce the tension and strengthen the diplomatic involvement,” Clinton, who was filling in for US President Barack Obama, told reporters as she prepared to leave Vladivostok. “This region of the world is the economic engine in what is still a fragile global economy.”
“It’s not in the interest of the Asian countries, it’s certainly not in the interest of the United States or the rest of the world, to raise doubts and uncertainties about the stability and peace in the region,” she said.
Clinton urged Seoul and Tokyo to “lower the temperature” over sparsely populated islands known as Dokdo in South Korea and as Takeshima in Japan, but controlled by South Korea and where Lee made an unprecedented visit last month.
Japan’s relations have also deteriorated anew with China over competing claims to the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in the East China Sea.
APEC spans the Pacific Rim, from China to Chile, and includes the world’s three-biggest national economies — the US, China and Japan — with its 21 members accounting for 44 percent of the world’s trade.
In their final summit statement, the leaders pledged to help boost the sluggish global economy by strengthening demand in their own countries, cutting public debt and committing to no new trade barriers.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s envoy to the APEC meeting, former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), yesterday said the formation of a code of conduct in the South China Sea should not exclude Taiwan, a proposition to which many of the representatives at the APEC summit meeting agreed.
Lien, representing President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), met with ASEAN members to discuss sovereignty issues in the South China Sea.
Taiwan’s principle concerning the South China Sea issue — that its sovereignty belongs to Taiwan, that Taiwan is willing to peacefully share the resources therein and that all parties involved should lay aside their differences and embark on a joint venture to develop resources in the region — is clear-cut and has not wavered, he said.
Many of the countries involved hope that talks over the South China Sea can commence as soon as possible and that a code of conduct should be formed, Lien said.
“We have also said expressly that Taiwan should be one of the main parties invited to the talks,” he said.
Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) and the Zhongzhou Reef (中洲礁) — both part of the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and governed by Taiwan — are strategically located, Lien said.
If talks were to commence without inviting Taiwan, any code of conduct would not have any basis in reality, Lien said.
“I can’t say all the economic bodies in the region agreed, but there were many that did,” Lien said.
The talks for a code of conduct first began after the signing of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in South China Sea in Phnom Penh by China and ASEAN member states, but because of concerns over national sovereignty, the subsequent talks and signing of an actual code of conduct for the South China Sea have not yet been held or inked.
Additional reporting by staff writer Jake Chung
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
DETERMINATION: Beijing’s actions toward Tokyo have drawn international attention, but would likely bolster regional coordination and defense networks, the report said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is likely to prioritize security reforms and deterrence in the face of recent “hybrid” threats from China, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said. The bureau made the assessment in a written report to the Legislative Yuan ahead of an oral report and questions-and-answers session at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The key points of Japan’s security reforms would be to reinforce security cooperation with the US, including enhancing defense deployment in the first island chain, pushing forward the integrated command and operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces Japan, as
IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu said the strengthening of military facilities would help to maintain security in the Taiwan Strait Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi, visiting a military base close to Taiwan, said plans to deploy missiles to the post would move forward as tensions smolder between Tokyo and Beijing. “The deployment can help lower the chance of an armed attack on our country,” Koizumi told reporters on Sunday as he wrapped up his first trip to the base on the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni. “The view that it will heighten regional tensions is not accurate.” Former Japanese minister of defense Gen Nakatani in January said that Tokyo wanted to base Type 03 Chu-SAM missiles on Yonaguni, but little progress
NO CHANGES: A Japanese spokesperson said that Tokyo remains consistent and open for dialogue, while Beijing has canceled diplomatic engagements A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as “entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies from spiraling. China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it “dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the UN. “I’m aware of this letter,” said Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman. “The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday. The Chinese Ministry
RSS