Sea of troubles: China and ASEAN
Foreign
ministers from China and the ten-member Association of South-East Asian
Nations gather today in Kunming, in south-west China. Their minds, as
ever, will be on the nerve-jangling South China Sea, where China
continues to turn disputed features into man-made islands. The meeting
follows a rare public row: China claimed a “consensus” with three of
ASEAN’s smaller members—Brunei, Cambodia and Laos—on handling the sea’s
many territorial wrangles without ASEAN’s help. Diplomats from
Singapore, ASEAN’s current China “co-ordinator”, accused Beijing of
seeking to divide the organisation by undermining the hallowed principle
of its own (full) consensus. China says the Singaporeans simply have
the wrong end of the stick, but shows little real interest in what has
interested ASEAN for years: a binding code of conduct, including, for
example, a building ban, to avoid conflict in the sea. That is, once
again, on the agenda; it will be for years to come.
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