By Shannon Tiezzi
China needs to try different tactics on the South China Sea disputes to gain ASEAN’s support for other Chinese projects.
The 2014 APEC summit is over, but many of the world leaders leaving Beijing are not heading home. Instead, ASEAN leaders, U.S. President Barack Obama, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are heading to Naypyitaw, Myanmar for a series of meetings involving ASEAN, including the ASEAN Plus Three summit and the East Asia Summit. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will be attending on Beijing’s behalf.
The APEC summit provided a platform for China to display its vision for the Asia-Pacific: an integrated economic community where Chinese growth is the major driver for prosperity (and thus Chinese interests must be respected). Ironically, however, China may face the most resistance toward its “Asia-Pacific Dream” from its immediate neighbors – particularly ASEAN members that have testy territorial disputes with China.
Reuters reports that the South China Sea issue is likely to be a major topic of discussion at the various ASEAN summits, much to China’s chagrin. Beijing prefers to handle these issues bilaterally, rather than through larger, multilateral bodies. ASEAN secretary-general Le Luong Minh expressed concern over “a widening gap between the political commitments and the actual actions, the real situation at sea.” Even non-claimants are concerned that the tensions are dangerous – Singapore’s foreign affairs minister K Shanmugam said the disputes are one of the biggest threats to regional security, Reuterssaid.
Indonesia, the de facto leader of ASEAN, has been pushing for a unified approach to the dispute among the ASEAN members. A recent push for a code of conduct in the South China Sea has made little progress, a topic that is likely to come up during the ASEAN-China summit as well as the East Asia Summit.
Read the full story at The Diplomat