The US and Vietnam on Friday jointly called for freedom of navigation and rejected the use of force in the South China Sea, amid simmering tensions between Beijing and its neighbors.
After talks in Washington, the former war foes said that “the maintenance of peace, stability, safety and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is in the common interests of the international community.”
“All territorial disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved through a collaborative, diplomatic process without coercion or the use of force,” the two countries said in a joint statement.
Photo: AFP
Disputes have flared in recent weeks in the South China Sea, with Vietnam holding live-fire military exercises after accusing Chinese ships of ramming an oil survey ship and cutting the exploration cables of another one.
China staged its own three days of military exercises in the South China Sea, which state media said were aimed at boosting the country’s offshore maritime patrol force.
“The US side reiterated that troubling incidents in recent months do not foster peace and stability within the region,” the statement said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a visit to Vietnam in July last year that was closely watched around Asia, said that the US had a vital national interest in freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
China has myriad disputes in the potentially resource-rich sea with countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines — which said on Friday that it was sending its aging naval flagship into the disputed waters. Amid the tensions, China said on Tuesday that it would not resort to the use of force in the South China Sea and urged other countries to “do more for peace and stability in the region.”
In the statement, the US and Vietnam threw their support for talks under the aegis of a 2002 agreement between China and the 10-nation ASEAN, in which the two sides pledged to work on a code of conduct for the South China Sea.
China and the ASEAN have done little in the intervening nine years to reach the code. Diplomats say that the Chinese appear to favor one-on-one talks with each nation, fearing that ASEAN would gang up on them in a group setting.
Despite the memories of war, the US and Vietnam have been rapidly building relations — in part due to a spike in tensions between Beijing and Vietnam, which bitterly recalls 1,000 years of Chinese rule.
“The situation with the sovereignty issues in the South China Sea has actually helped our relationship in a sense that they understand that they have a commonality of interest,” US Senator Jim Webb said at a conference on Monday.
Webb, a former combat marine in Vietnam, said that the US needed to be firmer on disputes in the South China Sea. The US officially does not take a position on disputes to which it is not party.
US President Barack Obama’s administration has put a focus on building ties with US-friendly nations in Southeast Asia and has enthusiastically welcomed the growing relationship with Vietnam, which includes military ties.
While mostly supportive of warmer ties, many members of Congress are sharply critical of Vietnam over its human rights record and demand progress in return for better ties. Human rights did not figure in the joint statement.
The annual US-Vietnam talks involved Andrew Shapiro, the US assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, and Vietnam’s Vice Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.
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