Obama wades into thorny Asian territorial row

Published on Tuesday, 20 November 2012 19:44

Written by AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—President Barack Obama’s attendance at an annual summit of Southeast Asian leaders sets him right in the eye of the region’s most stormy dispute: the long-raging rivalry between China and five neighbors for control of strategic and resource-rich waters of the South China Sea.

Neither the US nor China is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), but each has strong supporters in the 10-member group.

Asean summit host Cambodia, an ally of China, has tried to shift the focus to economic concerns, but Beijing’s territorial disputes with countries, including US ally the Philippines, have overshadowed discussions.

The disagreement sparked a tense moment on Monday at the summit when Philippine President Aquino challenged Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who had tried to cut of discussion of territorial disputes.

An expanded meeting called the East Asia Summit involving all Asean countries and eight other nations, including China and the United States, will be held on Tuesday in Phnom Penh.

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Obama was expected to reiterate during the summit that Washington takes no sides in the territorial disputes but will not allow any country to resort to force and block access to the South China Sea, a vital commercial and military gateway to Asia’s heartland.

Washington has also called for the early crafting of a “code of conduct” to prevent clashes in the disputed territories but it remains unclear if and when China would sit down with rival claimants to draft such a legally binding nonaggression pact.

The potentially oil- and gas-rich South China Sea islands and waters are contested by China, Taiwan and four Asean members—Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Vietnam and the Philippines, backed by Washington, have been raising the issue before major international forums, and want China to negotiate with the other claimants as a group. China wants one-on-one negotiations—which would give it advantage because of its sheer size and economic clout—and has warned Washington to stay away from an issue it says should not be “internationalized.”

There have recently been several standoffs involving boats and other shows of force, particularly between China and the Philippines. The battle for ownership of the Spratly Islands in one section of the South China Sea has settled into an uneasy stand-off since the last fighting, involving China and Vietnam, that killed more than 70 Vietnamese sailors in 1988.

But fears that the conflicts could spark Asia’s next war have kept governments on edge.

The latest diplomatic confrontation occurred a few hours before Obama touched down on Monday in the Cambodian capital, when Hun Sen announced as he was closing a meeting that all Asean leaders have struck an agreement to limit discussions of the divisive issue within the 10-nation bloc’s talks with China.

Alarmed, Mr. Aquino raised his hand, stood up and objected to Hun Sen’s statement, saying his country, which plans to bring the disputes before a UN tribunal, was not a party to any such agreement. It was a blunt gesture in the usually servile ambiance of the conservative bloc, an unwieldy collective of rigid, authoritarian regimes and nascent democracies.

After a brief lull, Hun Sen recovered and said Aquino’s remarks would be reflected in the record of the meeting. Still, Cambodian and Chinese officials insisted that the agreement stood.

An objection from the Philippines, or any Asean nation, ought to be enough to thrash any agreement because the bloc decides by consensus, meaning just one veto from any member kills any proposal.

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In Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama (eighth from left) smiles as he stands with other leaders for a group photo at the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Tuesday. They are (from left), Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Philippines’s President Benigno Aquino III, Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, Laos’s Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihino Noda, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak, New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (AP)