Dispute over the South China Sea: Russia and China block East Asia declaration

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Dispute over the South China Sea: Russia and China block East Asia declaration Article by Till Fähnders • 13 hours • 2 minutes reading time The East Asia Summit ends without a joint declaration. According to an American official, Russia and China are said to have blocked a joint declaration from the East Asia Summit. At the summit meeting in Laos at the end of last week, the two countries primarily opposed wording related to the conflicts in the South China Sea, according to a report by the Reuters news agency on Sunday. According to the US official, who did not want to be named, the ten countries of the Southeast Asian community of states ASEAN presented their draft declaration to the 18 countries participating in the summit on Thursday evening. The USA, Japan, Australia, South Korea and India supported the wording. Russia and China said "they could not and would not make a declaration". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced at a press conference in Vientiane on Friday that the final declaration had not been adopted because of "persistent attempts by the USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to turn it into a purely political statement." According to the US official, the main differences were over the points in the declaration that called for compliance with the rules for freedom of navigation laid down in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In the South China Sea, the second dangerous point of conflict in Asia, the issue is similar to the Taiwan Strait, and is also about geostrategic control of maritime areas. While China considers almost the entire sea to be its sovereign territory, the USA and its partner countries see China's behavior in the maritime area as a threat to freedom of navigation. China, Taiwan and four Southeast Asian states are also arguing over the territorial affiliation of a number of islands and atolls. Recently, there have been repeated incidents involving Philippine supply ships that have been blocked, harassed and rammed by Chinese ships. Joint military exercises by Russia and China in the Sea of ​​Japan ended At the meeting of ASEAN representatives with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. complained that his country was the victim of "harassment and intimidation". US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also expressed Washington's concern about China's "increasingly dangerous and unlawful" activities in the South China Sea. China's Prime Minister Li Qiang, on the other hand, called on "relevant countries outside the region" to "respect and support the joint efforts of China and regional countries to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea".