BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began
a visit to Brunei on Thursday in her latest stop on a tour seeking to cool
tensions in the South China Sea.
Clinton's one-night stop in
Brunei makes her the first US secretary of state to visit all 10 members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose unity she has been keen
to strengthen.
Tensions have escalated in the
South China Sea with the Philippines and Vietnam accusing China of stepping up
harassment of their fishermen and ships in a bid to exert Beijing's claims to
virtually all of the strategic waterway.
Brunei will next year serve as
the chair of ASEAN and the East Asia Summit, the latter of which includes ASEAN
and a handful of other countries including China and the United States.
Brunei succeeds Cambodia, whose
tenure has been marred by rising friction between Southeast Asian nations and
China over the maritime disputes.
"I think they're somewhat
nervous about next year," a US official aboard Clinton's plane said on
condition of anonymity.
ASEAN foreign ministers in July
failed for the first time in the bloc's 45-year history to produce a joint
communique at annual talks amid divisions over whether to stand up to China.
"They would like to avoid
the kinds of public tensions that we just witnessed when we were in
Cambodia," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"Like many ASEAN countries,
they want very much to have a good relationship between the United States and
China. They don't want to have to choose."
Brunei is one of six nations with
various claims -- some of them overlapping -- over the South China Sea, through
which around half of the world's commercial cargo is transported.
Clinton, whose latest trip has
taken her to Beijing and Jakarta, has pushed for ASEAN and China to agree on a
code of conduct that would manage disputes and prevent incidents at sea from
escalating into full-blown conflicts.
She will meet Sultan Hassanal
Bolkiah for dinner on Thursday and then take part in an event on Friday to
highlight an initiative between Brunei and the United States to teach English
in less prosperous parts of ASEAN.
- AFP/ir
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