China offers ASEAN friendship, loans as sea tension bubbles

NAYPYITAW - China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang proposed a friendship treaty with Southeast Asian countries and offered $20 billion in loans on Thursday but held firm on the line that Beijing will only settle South China Sea disputes directly with other claimants.

China, Taiwan and four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have competing claims in the sea where concern is growing of an escalation in disputes.

"China ... stands ready to become the first dialogue partner to sign with ASEAN a treaty of friendship and cooperation," Li told leaders at an East Asian summit in Myanmar.

The treaty is seen as an attempt by China to dispel any notion it is a threat and Li said China was willing to make pacts with more countries on good-neighbourliness and friendship.

Li also offered ASEAN countries $20 billion in preferential and special loans to develop infrastructure, an attractive proposition for a region struggling to fund the roads, ports and railways needed for growth.

Still, he reiterated China's resolve to safeguard its sovereignty and its position that maritime disputes should be settled bilaterally rather than collectively or through arbitration.

The Philippines, one of the ASEAN claimants, has irked China by seeking international arbitration over China's claims to about 90 percent of the South China Sea.

Philippine diplomatic sources were cool to China's treaty offer, saying it lacked substance and was similar to a 2012 Philippine proposal that China ignored.

ASEAN leaders hoped to persuade their giant neighbour to take a less bellicose approach to the overlapping claims when they met Li behind closed doors on Thursday.

But despite the backroom talk, ASEAN as a group has been reluctant to antagonise China.

"We remain concerned over the situation in the South China Sea," the group said its Chairman's Statement without mentioning China.

The Philippines and Vietnam have sought closer U.S. ties to counter what they see as China's aggression.

In May, China sent an oil drilling rig to waters claimed by Vietnam, sparking deadly anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam.

U.S. President Barack Obama, also in Naypyitaw for the East Asian summit, held his first formal meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dong on Thursday.

"We very much share the belief that it is important for all countries in the region, large and small, to abide by rules based norms in resolving disputes," Obama said.

On Oct. 2, the United States decided to start easing a nearly four-decade lethal arms embargo on Vietnam. (Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA, Matt Spetalnick in NAYPYITAW and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Robert Birsel)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

US presses Beijing on South China Sea claims

WASHINGTON - The United States on Wednesday urged Beijing to clarify or adjust its claims in the South China Sea, calling for a peaceful solution to one of Asia's growing flashpoints.

With tensions already high over Beijing's imposition of an air zone above islands administered by Japan in the East China Sea, fears are growing of a fresh showdown in a separate row in the South China Sea where the Philippines is especially concerned.

Addressing the rifts, the top US diplomat for the region challenged Beijing's so-called "nine-dash line" that outlines its territorial claims over much of the South China Sea.

Danny Russel, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said that maritime claims under international law needed to be based on land features.

"Any Chinese claim to maritime rights not based on claimed land features would be inconsistent with international law," Russel told a congressional committee.

"China could highlight its respect for international law by clarifying or adjusting its claim to bring it into accordance with international law of the sea," he said.

Russel supported the Philippines' right to take its case to a United Nations tribunal -- a move last year that was denounced by China -- as part of efforts to find a "peaceful, non-coercive" solution.

"China's lack of clarity with regard to its South China Sea claims has created uncertainty in the region and limits the prospect for achieving mutually agreeable resolution or equitable joint development arrangements," Russel said.

Russel's remarks indicate an increasingly activist US stance on the South China Sea. In 2010, then secretary of state Hillary Clinton declared on a visit to Vietnam that freedom of navigation was a US national interest in the South China Sea, through which more than half of the world's merchant goods are shipped.

But the United States, while boosting military cooperation with allies Japan and the Philippines, has generally stressed that it takes no stance on sovereignty in Asia's myriad disputes -- a position that Russel reiterated.

Warning against a new air zone

Concerns have been rising over the South China Sea. Philippine President Benigno Aquino, in an interview with The New York Times, called on world leaders not to "appease" China and drew a parallel to the 1938 decision to give Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland to Adolf Hitler's Germany.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun recently reported that China has drafted proposals for an Air Defense Identification Zone over the South China Sea, similar to a move in November over the East China Sea that sent tensions soaring with Tokyo.

China denied the report, accusing "right-wing forces" in Japan of playing up tensions. The state-run Xinhua news agency separately attacked Aquino, saying his remarks showed him to be an "amateurish politician who was ignorant both of history and reality."

Russel repeated warnings to China not to impose an Air Defense Identification Zone, which calls on planes to report to Beijing, over the South China Sea.

"We neither recognize nor accept China's declared ADIZ," Russel said. "We made clear to China that it shouldn't attempt to implement that ADIZ and should refrain from taking similar actions elsewhere in the region."

The United States, Japan and South Korea have defied China's zone in the East China Sea by flying fighter-jets through it without informing Beijing.

But Representative Steve Chabot, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia and a member of the rival Republican Party, accused President Barack Obama's administration of sending "mixed signals" that have emboldened China.

"It's time for the administration to move beyond speeches and find a way to reassure the region that the United States is there to stay, and that America's future in Asia is strong, committed and absolute," Chabot said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Biden calls for peace in Asia's waters

SINGAPORE - US Vice President Joe Biden Friday called on Asian nations to reduce tensions in disputed waters across the region as Washington redoubles efforts to confront China's growing maritime presence there.

In a flurry of diplomacy on the first day of his two-day visit to Singapore, President Barack Obama's number two urged parties to reject bellicose threats in the South China Sea and East China Sea and "quickly" agree on rules to prevent conflict.

China claims nearly all of the strategically vital South China Sea, even waters close to the shores of its smaller neighbours, a regular flashpoint with smaller nations like Vietnam and the Philippines.

Beijing is also locked in an increasingly fractious maritime row with Japan in the East China Sea over a series of disputed islands -- a source of growing concern for Washington which has a defence alliance with Tokyo.

As well as meeting with Singaporean leaders, Biden took the opportunity to hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was visiting Singapore on the same day as part of tour of Southeast Asia.

"We each expressed our concern about the rising tensions in the South China Sea," Biden told reporters after a meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

"The United States urges all parties to reject coercion, intimidation and threats to the use of force," said Biden, who arrived late Thursday from an earlier visit to India.

"We encourage the ASEAN and China to quickly reach agreement on a code of conduct," he added.

Four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam -- are locked in rival claims with China and Taiwan over areas in the South China Sea.

The 10-nation grouping has been urging China to negotiate a legally binding code of conduct aimed at preventing conflict in the sea, but Beijing has said it prefers to deal with individual claimants.

Washington says it has an interest in the freedom of navigation in the sea, which hosts vital shipping lanes.

China in recent years has increasingly taken steps to enforce its claims, sparking the strongest protests from Philippines and Vietnam.

Biden in his remarks did not refer to any particular threats to the use of force or intimidation in the South China Sea.

But in June this year, a powerful arm of China's state-run media accused the Philippines of trying to provoke Beijing and warned it could lead to aggressive Chinese action.

"If the Philippines continues to provoke China... a counterstrike will be hard to avoid," said the commentary run by the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party.

On his meeting with Abe, Biden said both leaders shared the view that the US-Japan alliance plays a central role in regional peace and stability.

"The vice president reaffirmed the US position on the East China Sea, including our alliance commitments," a US statement after the meeting said.

Biden also "highlighted the US view that all sides should take steps to reduce tensions", the statement added.

Biden said he also discussed trade ties, including a US-led initiative called the Trans-Pacific Partnership which aims to establish one of the world's biggest free trade zones.

"We're working hard with Singapore and others to get it done in 2013," Biden said.

Japan joined the talks for the first time this month with 11 other countries already holding negotiations -- Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.

Biden said the 12 countries account for 40 percent of world gross domestic product and would form the "core for a stronger global economic growth... in the 21st century".

Some analysts say the TPP is part of Washington's efforts to contain China, which is not a party to the ongoing negotiations.

China however is part of talks for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a 16-nation free-trade bloc in Asia that excludes the US.

Before plunging into serious diplomacy Friday, Biden and his wife Jill were feted during a ceremony at the National Orchid Garden, where a new hybrid was named "Denrobium Joe and Jill Biden" in their honour.

"Never did I think in my wildest dreams that I would have an orchid named after me and my wife," Biden said.

"That was beyond any expectations I ever had as a child or as an adult."

On Saturday, Biden will visit a facility of US aerospace giant Pratt & Whitney and tour the US Navy's littoral combat ship USS Freedom.

The warship has been deployed to Singapore and the surrounding region for the next eight months to give teeth to Washington's strategic "pivot" towards Asia.

He will leave for Hawaii later on Saturday.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

US eyes progress on South China Sea tensions

WASHINGTON - A US official on Wednesday voiced hope that China and Southeast Asian nations will start talks soon on a code of conduct to resolve disputes over the South China Sea after repeated flare-ups.

Joe Yun, the acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said that China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) made apparent progress during a working-level meeting last week in Bangkok.

"I think there seems to be an understanding that at a future date, maybe sometime this year, they will announce a formal beginning of negotiations" on a code of conduct, Yun told the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"If that's the case, we would genuinely welcome it because we see CoC as a key piece of the puzzle that would bring peaceful resolution" to rival claims in the South China Sea, Yun said.

Tensions have soared in recent years as Vietnam and the Philippines accuse China of increasingly assertive claims to territories in the South China Sea, through which around half of the world's cargo passes.

The broader region is also rife with maritime disputes, with the Philippines and Taiwan recently at loggerheads and China and Japan embroiled in a bitter dispute over islands in potentially energy-rich waters of the East China Sea.

Yun reiterated that the United States does not take sides in territorial disputes and that a code of conduct, which would formalize rules of behavior, offered the best way to prevent further conflict.

"To be frank with you, I'm not sure that these territorial disputes, whether they are maritime or whatever, can ever be fully resolved in a sense that one party says, 'Damn, I think you're right, you know I never thought about that,'" Yun said.

Instead, the code of conduct can offer a way to "not disturb our stability," he said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com