The Philippines yesterday deplored the non-issuance of a joint statement
at the end of the 45th Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting held in Cambodia.
Foreign Secretary Albert del
Rosario said the failure to issue a joint statement was unprecedented in
Asean's 45-year history.
A joint communique would have
included Asean's stand on the territorial disputes of some members of the bloc
with China in the South China Sea, referred to as the West Philippine Sea in
the Philippines.
Del Rosario said the Philippines
took strong exception to the statement made by Cambodia, host of the meeting,
that this would be "the first time that Asean is not able to issue the
joint communique due to bilateral conflict between some Asean member states and
a neighbouring country."
He said he had discussed the
situation at Panatag Shoal (also known as Scarborough Shoal) in several
meetings in Phnom Penh starting last Monday.
"There was a considerable
amount of discussion on Scarborough Shoal in all of the forums that were held
there," Del Rosario told reporters. "I think we were successful in
being able to bring to the [forums] the challenges that the Philippines faces
in that area."
Asked for comment on China's
allegation that the Philippines was causing trouble, Del Rosario said: "I
think even when we were silent, we were being accused of escalating [things];
when we were responding, we were accused of being the bully. Those are my
humble observations."
Cambodia's opposition
Explaining the controversy about
the Asean joint statement, Del Rosario said: "We simply wanted the fact
that we discussed the issue and it should be reflected in the joint communique,
no more, no less. It would have just been a simple sentence or paragraph in the
communique. We just want a recognition that the Scarborough Shoal was in fact
discussed."
Del Rosario said several Asean
states and the Asean secretariat supported the Philippine position that the
Scarborough Shoal discussion should be reflected in the joint statement.
"However, the chair [Cambodia] has consistently opposed any mention of the
Scarborough Shoal at all in the joint communique and today announced that a
joint communique 'cannot be issued'."
Del Rosario declined to name the
countries that supported the Philippines' position, saying, "I may be
putting in jeopardy those countries that I do not name, so I would prefer not
to do that.
"The first position the
chair took was that he doesn't want to mention bilateral issues," Del
Rosario said. "But if you look at many of the issues that we had, all of
them have a bilateral aspect to it."
He said it was not true that
Asean did not include bilateral matters in joint statements. "The most
recent example of this was the problem between Cambodia and Thailand. In every
meeting, that was brought up as a matter of discussion with no
reservations," Del Rosario said.
The Philippines, Del Rosario
said, maintains that since the competing claims in the South China Sea are not
mere bilateral conflicts with a northern neighbour but multilateral, these
should be resolved multilaterally.
Asked if Cambodia was pressured
by China, Del Rosario said: "I don't want to speak for the chair. That
question should be answered directly by him. But at one point, he indicated
that he had political reasons."
Del Rosario said Asean foreign
ministers have already agreed to initiate discussions between Asean and China
on the development of the code of conduct," he added.
Del Rosario said the problem that
arose during the Phnom Penh meeting should not be seen as the beginning of a
split in Asean.
Asean still divided over South China Sea
Asean was unable to issue a joint
statement yesterday to announce its stance on certain issues, because its
members could not agree on certain pertinent items related to the South China
Sea issue.
Ministers and officials said they
were disappointed with the grouping's failure to be united enough to speak in
the same voice when confronted by a super power.
This is the first time in its 45
years that Asean has not been able to announce its decision after an annual
meeting, director-general of the Foreign Ministry's Asean Affairs Department,
Arthayudh Srisamoot, said.
"We should look into what
went wrong in the internal working procedure," he said. "The South
China Sea is only one issue, but we had to throw out everything else we had
agreed to include in the communique."
Ministers and officials of the
10-member regional grouping have been struggling since Monday to overcome their
differences, especially since the Philippines and Vietnam want the group to
focus on specific incidents.
The Philippines wants to focus on
its recent stand-off with Chinese ships in the Scarborough Shoal, while Vietnam
wants Asean to call on all concerned parties to respect the exclusive economic
zone and the continental shelves in the sea. Vietnam and China are in dispute
because they have granted oil and gas concessions in areas claimed by both of
them.
However, Cambodia, the incumbent
Asean chair that has strong connections with Beijing, does not want the
statement to focus on these issues. This document should have been issued after
the Asean ministerial meeting was wrapped up on Monday. Foreign ministers and
other senior officials from member countries met several times last week, but
were unable to reach a consensus on the issue.
In a last-ditch effort,
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa held another meeting yesterday
morning but he failed to achieve anything. Not only did those present refuse to
budge, but many ministers were unable to attend this impromptu gathering
because they had flown out of Phnom Penh.
Meanwhile, Cambodian Foreign
Minister Hor Namhong said his government would not take any sides and that
issuing a joint statement should be the responsibility of all Asean members,
not just that of the chair.
"I requested that we issue a
joint communique without mentioning the South China Sea dispute, but some
member countries repeatedly insisted on including the issue of the Scarborough
Shoal," he told reporters. "I told my colleagues that a meeting of
the Asean foreign ministers is not a court, not a place to give a verdict about
the dispute."
The South China Sea issue has put
Asean-China relations on edge for a long time, especially since China is in
dispute with Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam over spots in the sea that are
believed to have abundant supplies of petroleum.
Asean and China signed a
Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002, but it
was a non-binding instrument and mostly focused on soft issues such as
cooperation on scientific maritime research and environment protection.
The grouping wants China to agree
on a more binding code of conduct on the issue and the Asean foreign ministers
agreed on Monday to include certain "key elements" in the code. Both
sides will be meeting in Phnom Penh in September to discuss these elements.
China rejects blame for no joint statement
China yesterday dismissed
accusations that it was responsible for the lack of a joint statement after a
meeting between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
"China believes that at the
meeting series of the Asean Regional Forum, parties involved exchanged ideas on
East Asian regional cooperation and major regional and international
issues," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a regular news
briefing.
"China's views and positions
on issues in various fields were well understood and received support from many
countries," he said.
Foreign ministers from China and
member states of Asean have been debating the language of a joint statement
since Monday, in which some Asean members insisted on including content
regarding the South China Sea.
The Philippines and the United
States have called for a unified Asean to use its collective clout to press
China.
However, Beijing insists on
dealing with the countries concerned bilaterally and has criticissed outside
intervention.
The Philippines lambasted the
failure at the end of the talks on Friday, blaming it on China. It had insisted
that the joint statement must include reference to its armed standoff with
China last month over Huangyan Island in the South China Sea.
However, there is discord within
Asean on this issue.
Hor Namhong, foreign minister of
Cambodia, which holds the rotating Asean presidency, said he could "not
accept that the joint statement has become hostage of the bilateral issue
(between the Philippines and China)".
Thailand's Foreign Minister
Surapong Towichukchaikul said at the East Asia Summit that there might be some
sensitive issues and disputes in the region but the meeting will build up trust
and confidence in the region to handle the situation.
During the summit this week,
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi warned the Philippines that the use of warships in
relation to Chinese fishermen in China's waters off the Huangyan Island has
sparked a public outcry in China.
Several major industries of the
Philippines, including tourism and fruit planting, were heavily hit after its
territorial dispute with China escalated in April.
Beijing expects Manila to stop
stirring up trouble, Yang said.
Zhang Jie, an expert on
Asia-Pacific studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said despite
the disputes at the Asean meetings this week, "the atmosphere has been
easier than in 2010 and 2011", when the issue was also brought up.
"The US and Asean have
adopted a much more friendly attitude toward China compared with the two
previous meetings," Zhang said.
The US is a dialogue partner of
the Asean as well as a member of the EAS and Asean Regional Forum.
Yang discussed the South China
Sea issue, among others, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the
sidelines of the Asean meetings in Phnom Penh.
Clinton said that the US was
committed to developing a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship
with China.
Collectively, Asean has never
taken sides on the South China Sea issue since the forum was set up in 1994,
Zhang noted.
Liu said on Friday that amid the
global economic turmoil, nations in the Asia-Pacific region should stand closer
and join hands to explore growth opportunities within the region.
The Nation, China Daily, AFP
AsiaOne
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