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View all search resultsASEAN urges calm amid South China Sea tensions
ASEAN’s top diplomats met in Bangkok this week for a second round of ministerial meetings with the group’s dialogue partners against the backdrop of recent tensions between Beijing and Hanoi.
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A sandbar too far: One of the three sandbars between Pagasa and Philippine-claimed but China-controlled Zamora Reef in the South China Sea. (AFP/-)
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SEAN foreign ministers have called for an environment that is conducive to continued negotiations for a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, as a standoff between China and Vietnam in the latter’s economic territory is feared to cause growing anxiety in the region.
ASEAN’s top diplomats met in Bangkok this week for a second round of ministerial meetings with the group’s dialogue partners against the backdrop of recent tensions between Beijing and Hanoi.
Four ASEAN countries — Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam — are at odds with China, which has been aggressively building and militarizing artificial islands as part of its sweeping claims over the South China Sea, one of the world's busiest sea routes.
Tensions came to a head in recent weeks as a result of altercations between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels near an oil block within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), an area over which a country holds special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources.
China had called on Vietnam to respect its claims to the region but was met with a demand to remove a Chinese survey ship from Vietnamese waters.
In a joint communique published at the end of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting plenary and retreat sessions, ASEAN foreign ministers “emphasized the need to maintain and promote an environment conducive to the COC negotiations, and thus welcomed practical measures that could reduce tensions and the risk of accidents, misunderstandings and miscalculations”.
The ministers also “reaffirmed the importance of upholding international law, including the 1982” United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which has been used against China in a 2016 international arbitration ruling invalidating its claim over the South China Sea.
