By Shannon Tiezzi
Besides a Foreign Ministers’ Statement, ASEAN largely chose to avoid addressing the current South China Sea tensions.
With Vietnam and China continue to clash over the presence of a Chinese oil rig less than 200 miles from Vietnam’s coast, ASEAN leaders met in Myanmar over the weekend for the annual ASEAN Summit. All eyes, including those in Beijing, were on the Southeast Asian group to see how it would respond to the latest incidents in the South China Sea.
As expected, the South China Sea issue overshadowed the ASEAN Summit. The summit spokesperson, Ye Htut, told Myanmar’s Daily Eleven that the Political Security Community Meeting went longer than expected “due to the issue of [the] South China Sea.” Specifically, there was a “long” discussion on whether to release a separate statement on the issue, or whether to address the issue in a sub-paragraph of the original statement. “ASEAN countries have different opinions on the South China Sea. No one will say which country is right or which country is wrong,” Ye Htut said.
Ultimately, it seems ASEAN decided to split the difference. On May 10, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers issued a separate statement on the South China Sea. The statement expressed “serious concerns over the ongoing developments in the South China Sea.” The statement did not mention China or Vietnam by name, but called for all parties to “to exercise self-restraint and avoid actions which could undermine peace and stability in the area; and to resolve disputes by peaceful means without resorting to threat or use of force.” The statement was taken as a sign that ASEAN might be willing to adopt a unified stance on what constitutes acceptable (or unacceptable) conduct in the South China Sea.
Yet this didn’t pan out — the final ASEAN communique, issues by the heads of state, contained no criticism of China. It seems as through the statement from the Foreign Ministers, rather than paving the way for a second statement, was ASEAN’s attempt to sideline the issue for the remainder of the summit.
Read the full story at The Diplomat