China Urges Asean to Avoid Sea Spat

July 11, 2012
By PATRICK BARTA
The Wall Street Journal

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—China moved to block efforts to resolve long-running tensions over claims in the disputed South China Sea, warning participants in a regional summit attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton here that it is "crucial" they leave the issue out of their discussions.

Mrs. Clinton, who arrived in the Cambodian capital late Wednesday after making a brief but historic trip to the Laotian capital of Vientiane, is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the country since John Foster Dulles in 1955. Mrs. Clinton met with the communist nation's prime minister and discussed ways of unlocking more investment there as part of Washington's widening effort to build allies in Southeast Asia to match China's growing influence in the region.

Mrs. Clinton is also expected to announce new rules later this week clarifying procedures for U.S. companies wanting to invest in Myanmar, including energy companies looking to do business with the country's state oil firm—another part of Washington's effort to expand America's role in countries that border China. U.S. officials said earlier this year they would be suspending sanctions against Myanmar after its government launched overhauls to end decades of military rule, and U.S. companies have been waiting for more details before they go in.

But tensions over the South China Sea are increasingly looming over Mrs. Clinton's weeklong Asia tour, which has also included stops in Japan, Mongolia and Vietnam.

The resource-rich stretch of water—which carries around half of the world's total trade—is claimed in whole or part by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, and frictions have intensified lately. In one of the latest dust-ups, Chinese and Philippine ships were locked in a two month stand-off at a disputed area known as the Scarborough Shoal after Philippine authorities tried to arrest Chinese fishermen accused by Manila of illegally harvesting coral in the waters. The ships finally began to withdraw last month after heavy storms made it difficult for them to remain.

The Philippines and other Southeast Asian claimants were hoping to make headway on defusing the sea disputes Thursday, when foreign ministers from Southeast Asia, China and other countries meet at a series of annual summit gatherings sponsored by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, in Phnom Penh. Mrs. Clinton flagged her intentions on Tuesday, when she told reporters in Hanoi that she hoped Asian leaders would work on developing a code of conduct for activities in the sea to ensure future disagreements are resolved amicably.

But in a commentary published Wednesday by the state-run Xinhua news agency, China poured water on that goal, saying ministers gathering in Phnom Penh should "be wary" of letting the South China Sea "distract" them, because Asean meetings are "not a proper platform" for discussing the issue. Rather, they should focus on building mutual trust and cooperation, it said.

"Thus, it is preferable and crucial that the Phnom Penh meetings keep to their agenda and leave South China Sea issues to China and the specific Asean countries concerned," it said.

The statements came a day after similar warnings from a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, who at a briefing described the discussions on the South China Sea as "deliberate hype" designed to "to interfere with the relationship between China and Asean."

"Certainly, disagreements exist, but we have constantly shown that a common understanding can be reached through peaceful negotiations," said Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Asean's secretary-general. "I am confident that our collective wisdom and shared experiences will help us steer through these difficulties."

Central to the latest debate is an on-again, off-again effort to complete the so-called code of conduct, which Asean leaders envision as a legally binding document that would guide behavior in the sea and establish protocols for resolving future disputes peacefully.

Asian leaders agreed to draft a code a decade ago. But it never was completed, in part because of China's position that disagreements should be settled on a bilateral rather than multilateral basis. Critics of China's policy say the country fears it would be harder to negotiate South China Sea rules with a united Asean - a region of some 600 million people - and wants to isolate the individual nations that have the strongest claims.

Efforts to salvage the code were revived at a series of Asean meetings in Bali last year. Since then, Asean leaders have been working to develop a more comprehensive code and a timeline for finishing it, perhaps as early as later this year, according to people familiar with the matter. But hopes for any progress in Phnom Penh are running low.

"I think this is going to be really bloody, this one," said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, referring to the Phnom Penh summits.

Another big stumbling block, aside from China's opposition, is that Southeast Asian nations themselves can't all agree on how hard to press the issue. Maritime states with claims in the sea—especially the Philippines and Vietnam—want to take a hard line against China, while other states, especially Cambodia, have been wary of taking steps that might embarrass Chinese leaders.

Those divisions, in turn, have helped fuel U.S. efforts to promote closer political and economic integration in Southeast Asia, in the hopes that it will help the countries—which have wildly different political systems and income levels—grow more accustomed to working together so they can present a more unified front in regional disputes.

Nevertheless, "the trends are not good," said Carlyle Thayer, a professor with the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. For many Southeast Asian nations, "peace and tranquility are more important than forcing China to do what it doesn't want."

In her meetings in Laos, meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton and Laotian leaders agreed to work together to clean up vast quantities of unexploded ordnance left over in the country from the Vietnam War, when U.S. planes dropped more than two million tons of bombs on the country. They also discussed ways to boost trade ahead of an expected entry of Laos into the World Trade Organization, which analysts have said could happen as early as later this year.

Write to Patrick Barta at patrick.barta@wsj.com