OTTAWA (Reuters) - Deeper divisions could open up between
Southeast Asian states and Beijing unless they do a better job of handling disputes
such as a recent quarrel over the South China Sea, Indonesia's foreign minister
said on Thursday.
Marty Natalegawa said Jakarta was
trying to restore harmony after unprecedented arguments over the sea prevented
a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) last month from
issuing a joint communique, the first time this had happened in the 10-member
bloc's 45-year history.
"That's not good ... we will
need to do better next time," he told Reuters in an interview during a
visit to Canada.
The divisions stem from what some
ASEAN members see as China's rapidly expanding influence in the region. Beijing
has close relations with some ASEAN member states like Cambodia and Myanmar but
there are tensions with others such as the Philippines and Vietnam. The Asian
giant is not a member of the group.
China has territorial claims over
a huge area of the South China Sea, including waters where the Philippines and
Vietnam also claim sovereignty. At stake are potentially massive offshore oil
reserves.
The area has become Southeast
Asia's biggest potential military flashpoint. China and the Philippines have
faced-off on a number of occasions in the disputed waters.
Natalegawa said he did not
believe there was any one country in Southeast Asia or East Asia that
"deliberately, with conscious aggressive intent" wanted to jeopardize
peaceful international relations in the region.
"What we may have instead is
a risk of miscalculation, of misperception, and action creating
counter-reaction and a chain effect," he said.
Indonesia, by far the most
powerful member of ASEAN, is working on a binding code of conduct for the South
China Sea that would offer a guarantee that if one nation involved in a
disagreement exercised restraint, the other would too.
"We have to save us from
ourselves in assuming the worst of the other's intent and ending up having a
self-fulfilling type of vicious circle. Now this is what Indonesia is trying to
do," said Natalegawa.
"We are trying to intervene
to say 'Look, stay calm and steady, let's not rush along a pathway that we
don't want to go in' and avoiding this Cold War type of mentality, as if there
are new fault lines."
China has yet to commit to the
idea of a code of conduct, the details of which are still unclear. Natelegawa
discussed the matter at a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi
this month and "did not receive any negative response to my presentation
of what is to come".
Natalegawa said he did not agree
with the claim that China was becoming more assertive within ASEAN.
"I said (to Chinese
officials) 'Look, what's going on? What's with you? Where are you coming from
on this issue?' And when I hear from their world view, from their perspective,
they have their own rationale and perception, as if they were caught by
surprise as to what had happened at the (summit)," he said.
The arguments over the South
China Sea were an unwelcome distraction for a grouping that plans to create a
European Union-style economic community by 2015.
Natalegawa said he was encouraged
by recent democratic reforms introduced by the military rulers of former rogue
member Myanmar, which is due to chair ASEAN in 2014.
"A country that is chairing
ASEAN on the eve of the ASEAN (economic) community 2015 must be more sensitive
on human rights issues, on governance issues, than any one of us," he
said.
"So it gives us a great deal
of ... encouragement in making sure the process of reform in Myanmar is irreversible."
David Ljunggren
Business & Investment Opportunities
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