China warned the US yesterday not to interfere in territorial disputes with its Asian neighbors over the South China Sea during talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton said ahead of a meeting with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎) on Bali that Washington welcomed a deal between China and Southeast Asia on guidelines meant to reduce tension in the strategic sea.
“I want to commend China and ASEAN for working so closely together to include implementation guidelines for the declaration of conduct in the South China Sea,” Clinton told reporters.
However, during their meeting, Yang reminded Clinton that China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea or anywhere else were none of Washington’s business.
“The Chinese side raised its own concerns, which is that it is important to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China,” Chinese delegation spokesman Liu Weiming told reporters, summarizing Yang’s comments to Clinton.
Liu said Yang and Clinton specifically discussed the South China Sea, but in a note of conciliation, he said the US seemed to understand the “sensitivity of these issues” and the two sides had “agreed to further promote dialogue and mutual understanding.”
The bilateral talks came a day ahead of the ASEAN Regional Forum, Asia’s main security dialogue involving Southeast Asian nations as well as China, Japan, the US, Russia and the Koreas.
Nuclear envoys from North and South Korea held talks yesterday on the sidelines of the Bali meetings for the first time since six-party nuclear negotiations -collapsed in December 2008.
The meeting between South Korea’s Wi Sung-lac and North Korea’s Ri Yong-ho was the first between the states’ chief nuclear envoys in more than two years, and was described by a US official in Bali as “quite important.”
North Korea pulled out of the six-nation talks in 2009, accusing the US of hostility. Since then it has tested a nuclear bomb, fired on a civilian island in the South and allegedly torpedoed a South Korean warship.
North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun also told a top Chinese official yesterday that Ri had been appointed the country’s top envoy to the negotiations.
Clinton had earlier said that she and Yang would discuss their “mutual desire for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula” in their bilateral talks.
Yang agreed, saying this was the time to unite.
“Anything we can do together to promote a better atmosphere and good dialogue among the parties concerned and to restart the six-party talks would be in the best interests of peace, stability and security of the region,” he said.
China lays historical claim to the South China Sea in its entirety, while Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also have overlapping claims to islands and maritime territory in the area.
The Philippines and Vietnam have expressed anger in recent months over what they call China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the area, such as harassment of fishermen and oil exploration vessels.
China and ASEAN announced a “breakthrough” in the dispute on Wednesday, endorsing a set of guidelines designed to reduce tensions in the waters.
However, almost 10 years in the making, the non-binding guidelines were quickly criticized by Philippine diplomats as lacking teeth, while officials from all sides said a binding code of conduct was still a long way over the horizon.
And in comments likely to irk China, a US official traveling with Clinton said she would tell her Asian counterparts today that the US had a “strategic stake” in the South China Sea.
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