Chinese Premier Li Qiang yesterday referred to his country’s “brotherly ties” with Southeast Asian nations and stressed its economic centrality to the region, amid rising friction in the disputed South China Sea. .
At the ASEAN-China Summit in Jakarta yesterday, he told his counterparts in the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that the two nations had cooperated well on a number of issues, including the coronavirus pandemic. , and that the same would happen to be true about maritime disputes.
“As long as we stay on the right track, no matter what storm may arise, China-ASEAN cooperation will be as firm as ever and will continue through thick and thin,” Li told his counterparts. “We have preserved peace and tranquility in East Asia in a world plagued by turmoil and change.”
Li was seeking to downplay regional concerns over Beijing’s recent aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea, in which Chinese Coast Guard vessels threatened and blockaded Vietnamese and Philippine ships in disputed waters.
On August 5, a Chinese Coast Guard ship He blocked and fired a water cannon. against a supply ship chartered by the Philippine Navy in the vicinity of Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, forcing him to abandon his attempts to resupply the forces stationed on the atoll. This came after a similar incident near Second Thomas Shoal in February involving a Chinese Coast Guard ship, this time involving the use of a military grade laser.
In the last six months there has also been an increase in Chinese raids in waters also claimed by Vietnam. Vietnamese fishermen claimed that a Chinese boat attacked his fishing boat with a high-pressure water cannon in the South China Sea on August 28, injuring two of them.
Li did not mention the new “standard map” that the Chinese government released last week, which showcased its extensive claims by encroaching on its coastal waters. The publication of the map caused public protests from the four South China Sea claimants in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei), as well as from Indonesia.
As always, Li’s aim was to underscore China’s economic centrality and indispensability to the region. Also implicit in Li’s comments about brotherhood and the “right path” is China’s frequent claim that the recent frictions are the result not of Chinese aggression but of illegitimate interference by external powers, namely the United States.
The claim was made more explicitly this week by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who in a speech before an Indonesian think tank blamed an unnamed “behind-the-scenes manipulator” for impeding a China-ASEAN consensus on the South China Sea, and accused “individual outside forces” of “sowing discord” in the region. He went on to say that the “tragedy” of the war in Ukraine must not be repeated in Asia. (Wang’s brief successor and predecessor, Qin Gang, made a equally sinister comment in March, when he said that “no Ukraine-style crisis should be repeated in Asia”).
“To meet their own strategic needs and maintain their global hegemony”, the China Daily wrote in an editorial yesterday, “the United States is turning the sea into a playing field for the competition of the great powers, completely ignoring the search for peace, stability and development of the countries of the region.”
While it is true that the United States is not entirely without blame for the fact that disputes in the South China Sea have been chained to the broader competition between the United States and China, the Philippines this week rejected the claim that its concerns they were purely a fiction of US officials. A day earlier, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in a meeting with his ASEAN counterparts. defended his administration’s concerns on territorial integrity, even if he did not mention China by name.
“We don’t look for conflict; but it is our duty as citizens and as leaders to always stand up to meet any challenge to our sovereignty, to our sovereign rights and to our maritime jurisdictions in the South China Sea,” he said. “No country would expect less. No country would do less.”
The Philippines, he said, calls on all parties to self-restrain in activities complicating disputes in the South China Sea. “The Philippines firmly rejects misleading narratives that frame disputes in the South China Sea solely through the lens of strategic competition between two powerful countries,” Marcos said.
During yesterday’s China-ASEAN Summit, Marcos was less direct in his criticism and did not explicitly mention any of the recent incidents, The Associated Press reported. reportedciting a copy of the comments that was distributed to journalists.
The Philippines “continues to uphold the primacy of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as the framework within which all activities in the seas and oceans are conducted,” Marcos told the meeting. “Once again we reaffirm our commitment to the rule of law and the peaceful resolution of disputes.”
ASEAN has yet to give an official response to the recent events in disputed waters. Indonesia, the current ASEAN chair, did not follow in the footsteps of the United States and other Western nations in issuing any expressions of alarm over the actions of the Chinese coast guard last month. Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs Announced on Aug. 31 that Marcos would “go to great lengths” to have ASEAN issue a joint statement during meetings this week.
But as an observer scored yesterdayThe Philippines “did not put forward a proposal for a joint statement on the South China Sea” when ASEAN foreign ministers met on Tuesday, making it unlikely there will be an ASEAN response to ongoing friction in the South China Sea. It was not clear why Manila did not try to bring together the other eight current members of the bloc, but given the past difficulty in reaching a consensus on the disputes, which directly affect only five of the 10 ASEAN members, perhaps he assumed that simply It would not be possible. Worth the effort.
If that is the case, it says something about the faith that member states place in ASEAN to tackle some of the most pressing regional challenges of our time. Marty Natalegawa, former Indonesian foreign minister, this week called the failure of ASEAN to condemn China’s recent behavior “a deafening silence”.
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