Beijing’s South China Sea stance and US ‘truancy’ set to headline Asean defence meeting

US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper and Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe will meet in Bangkok with ministers from the 10-member Asean bloc and six other countries

Tensions between Vietnam and China over territorial disputes rose ahead of this weekend’s Asean Defence Ministers Meeting Plus, creating a potential flashpoint

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US Defense Secretary Mark Esper and South Korean Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo in Seoul on November 15. Photo: AP

Published: 5:30pm, 15 Nov 2019Updated: 4:48am, 16 Nov 2019

Fears about China’s increasingly bellicose actions in the South China Sea and the “truancy” of senior US leaders from recent Southeast Asian diplomatic events will be among the key talking points at this weekend’s meeting of regional defence chiefs, analysts said, despite host nation Thailand’s hopes participants will steer clear of controversial issues.

The Asean Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) Plus in Bangkok will feature the defence chiefs from the 10-nation bloc and eight global partners, including US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper and his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe.

In its sixth edition since its launch in 2010, the forum has won acclaim in regional defence diplomacy circles because of its unique status as a multilateral dialogue platform among defence ministries and militaries – which do not confer in such a setting as regularly as trade and foreign ministries.

Apart from the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, the ADMM Plus is the only forum that allows Southeast Asian defence chiefs to meet with counterparts of major powers such as the US and China at the same time.

The South China Sea will inevitably dominate or at least become the headline-grabbing issue of the sixth ADMM Plus

Shahriman Lockman, Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies

Although ADMM Plus participants have often taken a conciliatory approach to intractable issues such as territorial disputes in the South China Sea, tensions have become increasingly heightened between Vietnam and China, creating a potential flashpoint.

Vietnam will next year assume the rotating chairmanship of the Asean – and of ADMM – and has signalled it could elevate the South China Sea dispute to the top of the bloc’s agenda as the two communist countries square off over energy exploration activities.

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