VIENTIANE, Laos — President Ferdinand Marcos challenged Chinese Premier Li Qiang over recent clashes in the South China Sea at regional summit talks on Thursday, as fears grow that conflict could erupt in the disputed waterway.
Li met the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) at their gathering in Laos after a day of discussions dominated by the Myanmar civil war.
Recent months have seen a spate of violent clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels in waters around disputed reefs and islands in the South China Sea.
Marcos raised the issue in the meeting with Li, arguing that “you cannot separate economic cooperation from political security,” a Southeast Asian diplomat who attended the meeting told reporters.
The Li summit was largely focused on trade, and came the same day the premier met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who said Beijing has agreed to lift sanctions on the lucrative lobster industry.
But Marcos told the meeting that Asean and China cannot pretend that all is well on the economic front when there are tensions on the political front, the Southeast Asian diplomat said.
Marcos also said that both sides should hasten talks on a code of conduct in the sea.
On Wednesday, Asean leaders repeated longstanding calls for restraint and respect for international law in the South China Sea, according to a draft summit chairman’s statement seen by Agence France-Presse.
The growing frequency and intensity of clashes in the disputed waterway are fueling fears that the situation could escalate.
“The South China Sea is a live and immediate issue, with real risks of an accident spiraling into conflict,” Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong told his fellow leaders in Wednesday’s summit.
Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, a waterway of immense strategic importance through which trillions of dollars in trade transit every year.
But several Asean members — the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brunei — also have competing claims to various small islands and reefs.
Clashes at sea
The meeting with Li comes after a slew of violent clashes, particularly with the Philippines around the Spratly Islands.
Chinese coast guard and other vessels have rammed, water-cannoned and blocked Philippine government vessels.
Earlier this month, Vietnam issued an angry condemnation after some of its fishermen were attacked and robbed off the Paracel Islands by what it called “Chinese law enforcement forces.”
Beijing responded that the islands are its sovereign territory and its personnel were taking action to stop “illegal fishing” by the Vietnamese.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived Thursday and is expected to raise the South China Sea when he holds talks with Asean leaders on Friday.
Daniel Kritenbrink, the top US diplomat for East Asia, accused China of taking “escalatory and irresponsible steps designed to coerce and pressure many in the South China Sea.”
China has for years sought to expand its presence in contested areas of the South China Sea, brushing aside an international ruling that its claim to most of the waterway has no legal basis.
It has built artificial islands armed with missile systems and runways for fighter jets, and deployed vessels that the Philippines says harass its ships and block its fishers.
‘Aggressive, coercive’
On Wednesday, Marcos called his fellow Southeast Asian leaders “not to turn a blind eye” to China’s “aggressive, coercive, and illegal actions” in the South China Sea.
In his remarks during the Asean Summit’s retreat session here on Wednesday, Marcos urged Asean to “firmly reject the actions of external parties which violate international law, disregard international norms, and distort and undermine the principles upon which this organization is founded.”
“We call on all Asean member states not to turn a blind eye to the aggressive, coercive, and illegal actions of an external power against an Asean member state. For such actions undermines their claims of genuine adherence to our core values,” Marcos said.
“They run counter to one of Asean’s purposes: to unite the region as a bulwark against external threats and conflicts, and ensure that each Asean member state can lead its national existence free from interference, subversion and coercion. Silence in the face of these violations diminishes Asean,” he added.
Marcos also stressed that peace and security in the region is a “collective responsibility that we, as Asean member states, must uphold.”
“We cannot afford to prioritize transient gains at the expense of the unity and integrity of Asean. This is not about taking sides with one country over another, but rather about upholding our commitment to the rules-based international order bound by international law,” he said.
“My country cannot speak of independence and submit to the delusion that our sovereignty and security as an independent nation need not be fiercely guarded against the threats that are confronting it daily,” he added.
Marcos said though there have been positive developments recently in the region, “it is regrettable that it has not changed the overall situation in the South China Sea, and tensions remain.”
“Despite the illegal and dangerous actions of China against the Philippines in the South China Sea, and notwithstanding the serious damage and physical harm inflicted on our vessels and personnel, we are dedicated in our efforts to address and manage these disputes and tensions with China in accordance with the 1982 Unclos and the binding 2016 Arbitral Award,” Marcos said.
The President said it was time for Asean claimant states to consider working together more closely with each other on the code of conduct (CoC) in South China Sea, and other similar cooperative initiatives, either bilaterally or multilaterally.
“Using these complementary platforms, we may be able to agree on a number of outstanding core issues, which remain pending in the bigger CoC negotiations with the People’s Republic of China,” Marcos said.
“In spite of all the adversities in our road to peace, we will tread on this path and engage China through all diplomatic channels to arrive at mutually acceptable solutions to de-escalate the tensions in our waters,” he added.
WITH AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
