Foreign Minister Wang Yi embarked on a flurry of bilateral talks with Southeast Asian nations in Vientiane on Sunday, as his Asean counterparts failed to make a collective stand on maritime disputes in the South China Sea.
The ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations met for the first time since the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague handed an emphatic legal victory to the Philippines in the maritime dispute earlier this month.
The ruling denied China’s sweeping claims in the strategic seaway, through which more than US$5 trillion in global trade passes each year. China claims most of the sea, but Asean members the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei all have rival claims. Despite several hours of talks yesterday, the ministers remained deadlocked because Cambodia did not want China criticised, diplomats said.
“[Cambodia is] really a loyalist of the ‘big country C’,” a diplomat who attended the closed-door meetings said, referring to China.
The Philippines and Vietnam both wanted the meeting's communique to refer to the ruling and the need to respect international law, Asean diplomats said.
But in the run-up to the meeting, China’s closest Asean ally Cambodia opposed mentioning the ruling, throwing the group into disarray.