ASEAN concerned about Beijing’s reclamation in South China Sea

KOTA KINABALU — The Association of South-east Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) foreign ministers yesterday expressed concern at Chinese land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea, as the Philippines urged them to stand up to Beijing.

The statement came after Manila warned fellow members of ASEAN at a ministers retreat in Malaysia that the 10-country grouping’s credibility was at stake unless it dealt strongly with the critical issue.

ASEAN has for years responded cautiously to China’s increasingly assertive moves to stake its claims in the South China Sea. After years of pressure, Beijing agreed in 2013 to talks with ASEAN on a legally binding code of conduct for parties in the South China Sea. But substantive negotiations have yet to be held.

Singapore Foreign Minister K Shanmugam described the retreat as a family gathering, where “we sit together ... and discuss very frankly”. He said “a number of countries raised the issue very strongly because they felt the progress on the code of conduct was a little muted compared with the way in which land reclamation was being carried out”.

As the current coordinator for the ASEAN-China dialogue, Thailand has been tasked to try and expedite the discussions on the code of conduct. Mr Shanmugam added that as Singapore takes over from Thailand as country coordinator in August this year, their common goal will be to “try and do as much as we can to get to a proper document on the code of conduct”.

The South China Sea issue was not only something that concerned individual countries, Mr Shanmugam said, as the issues of freedom of navigation, peace and stability were common to all parties.

“We have all prospered because there has been peace and stability in the region. And we want to make sure that continues for the benefit of all our people and for disputes to be settled in a way that doesn’t lead to increased tension, for parties to find a way of dealing with issues. The code of conduct is one such approach. It cannot deal with the disputes, but what it does do is to try and say how parties should behave with each other in the context of disputes.”

The minister added that he was hopeful on the progress of the code, though he would rather not set a time frame because it involved 10 ASEAN countries as well as China.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, a position that conflicts with ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as with a non-member, Taiwan. AGENCIES