US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday sharply criticised China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful actions” in the dispute over territorial claims in the South China Sea.
These had “injured people, harmed vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolution of disputes,” Blinken said in the Laotian capital Vientiane at the summit of heads of state and government of the organization’s members.
Founded in 1967, ASEAN is a political and economic union of ten countries in South-East Asia, with a combined population of some 600 million people.
Blinken was responding to repeated incidents in the disputed South China Sea, especially between the Chinese coastguard and Philippine ships.
The Chinese regularly deploy water cannons and collisions have already occurred. Most recently, the Chinese air force held provocative manoeuvres in the region and fired flares near a Philippine air force transport plane.
China regards almost the entire South China Sea as its territorial waters. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei reject the claims, citing a 2016 ruling by the UN arbitration tribunal, but China does not recognise the ruling.
The resource-rich area is also considered an important global trade route.
On Thursday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called on the ASEAN members and the government in Beijing to speed up talks on a planned “code of conduct” for the South China Sea.
Marcos stressed that it was regrettable that the situation remained tense and unchanged.
“We continue to be subjected to harassment and intimidation,” he said. “Parties must be earnestly open to seriously managing the differences and to reduce tensions.”
According to the US secretary of state, there was no direct meeting between Blinken and Lavrov. However, the summit participants all made it clear that the war in Ukraine must end.
