China Wants Sea Dispute Off Asean Agenda as Clinton Urges Talks

By Daniel Ten Kate and Nicole Gaouette on July 10, 2012
Bloomberg News

China warned nations to avoid mentioning territorial disputes with the Philippines and Vietnam at a security meeting this week, rebuffing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call for talks on the issue.

Clinton indicated yesterday the U.S. would raise concerns over the South China Sea during meetings in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where envoys from 26 Asia-Pacific countries and the European Union meet tomorrow. Speaking at a press conference in Hanoi with Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, Clinton called competing claims in the waters a “critical issue.”

The Asean meetings are “not an appropriate venue for discussing the South China Sea,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told reporters in Beijing yesterday, in response to a question over U.S. concerns about a code of conduct in the waters. “Intentional stirring up of the issue is ignoring the nations striving for development, intentionally kidnapping the relationship between China and Asean.”

The diplomatic sparring reflects concern over China’s move last month to develop disputed areas of the South China Sea with oil and gas reserves that Hanoi’s leaders already awarded to companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) (XOM) and OAO Gazprom. Vietnam and the Philippines reject China’s map of the waters as a basis for development, and have sought a regional solution to increase their bargaining power with Asia’s biggest military spender.

Vietnam Role

“The United States appreciates Vietnam’s contributions to a collaborative diplomatic resolution of disputes and a reduction of tensions in the South China Sea,” Clinton said in Hanoi. The U.S. looks “to Asean to make rapid progress with China towards an effective Code of Conduct.”

Clinton visited Vietnam before the security summit in Cambodia in part to get a sense of Vietnam’s posture and thinking about the South China Sea, according to a State Department official who was not authorized to speak on the record.

Asean member states, including four with claims in the South China Sea, reached an agreement two days ago on rules for operating in the waters and will seek talks with China. The Philippines raised the issue yesterday during a meeting of envoys from Asean, China, Japan and South Korea, according to Kao Kim Hourn, an official with Cambodia’s foreign ministry.

Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, also known as PetroVietnam, called on China National Offshore Oil Corp., the government-owned parent of Cnooc Ltd. (883), to cancel an invitation for foreign companies to explore nine blocks in the South China Sea. Chinese vessels last year cut the cables of a PetroVietnam survey ship and chased away a boat in waters delimited by the Philippines.