US Encourages ASEAN-China to Develop Rules for South China Sea

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is supportive of ASEAN’s efforts to increase peaceful cooperation with China’s communist regime in the South China Sea. ASEAN, a political and economic bloc of nations in southeast Asia, held a summit this week, during which it announced that the group was heartened by “ongoing efforts to strengthen cooperation between ASEAN and China,” as well as its efforts to craft a “Code of Conduct” for the South China Sea. China and numerous ASEAN members all lay claim to overlapping portions of it. The Biden administration supports such initiatives and believes such frameworks are an invaluable avenue for maintaining peace in the region, said State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel during a May 11 press briefing. “…as it relates to the South China Sea and as it relates to maritime boundaries and international delineation, we believe that there is important space for those kinds of talks to continue to have some kind of framework and rules of the road as it relates to that part of the world,” Patel told the Epoch Times. Patel noted, however, that he was unaware of the particular announcement, but did not clarify whether others in the administration were aware of ASEAN’s efforts before the statement was made. ASEAN on the Front Line of China Expansion That is not to say that ASEAN’s relationship with China’s communist regime is without critical hardships. ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam all hold claims to various parts of the South China Sea, which China has systematically sought to expand its control over through the creation of artificial islands and mass use of illegal fishing fleets. The statement put out by the body after its summit this week referred to the issue euphemistically as “the situation in the South China Sea” without specifically naming China. “…concerns were expressed by some ASEAN Member States on the land reclamations, and serious incidents in the area, including damage to the marine environment, which has eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions, and may undermine peace, security, and stability in the region,” the statement said. The bloc’s pursuit of peace with China on the matter appears less to do with building truly warm ties with that country and more to do with preventing the escalation of hostilities in the region, such as when a Chinese militia ship fired a military grade laser at a Philippine Coast Guard ship earlier in the year. To that end, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he hoped ASEAN could avoid entanglement in “big power rivalries,” meaning the competition between China and the United States, according to Malaysian media outlet Astro Awani. Regardless, China continues essentially unimpeded in its efforts to expand its access to strategic resources in the region, largely succeeding by targeting small, unaligned nations for intimidation. For its own part, the United States maintains that communist China’s claims in the South China Sea are invalid, and experts typically believe the regime’s expansionary activities are a clear violation of international law. “All of this is clearly illegal, in contravention of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China helped negotiate,” said Greg Poling, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank last year. “We’re getting dangerously close to the point where freedom of navigation no longer exists in the South China Sea.”