Defence meeting in Hanoi calms South China Sea disputes (Roundup)

Oct 12, 2010, 9:47 GMT

Hanoi - Territorial disputes in the South China Sea were not on the official agenda at an Asian defence ministers' meeting Tuesday, but participants said the gathering helped calm recent tensions over maritime territory.

Attending defence ministers from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and eight other countries raised the issue anyway, senior officials said.

'The US mentioned [the South China Sea disputes],' Vietnamese Deputy Defence Minister Nguyen Chi Vinh told reporters. 'Some other ASEAN countries mentioned it, Japan and South Korea mentioned it, and Vietnam mentioned it as well.'

China claims most of the South China Sea as its own, but some of its claims are disputed by Vietnam and other ASEAN nations.

The first-ever ASEAN Defence Ministerial Meeting Plus (ADMM+) was cast as a trust-building effort between regional militaries. The meeting brought together the 10 ASEAN members along with China, the US, Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, Australia and New Zealand.

It concluded Tuesday with the signing of a joint resolution to collaborate in non-controversial areas such as search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and counterterrorism. The signatories included the ASEAN defence ministers, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie.

The resolution commits the parties to working towards a 'Code of Conduct' in the South China Sea to prevent clashes in the area. Over the past year China has seized hundreds of Vietnamese fishing boats it said had violated its territory.

In another trust-building move, Vietnamese Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh said China had released nine Vietnamese fishermen it had held since September 11 on the disputed Paracel Islands.

But on one key issue, the meeting produced no advances. Vietnam and some other ASEAN members would like China to negotiate maritime territorial claims on a multilateral basis, but China insists on bilateral negotiations.

In a speech Monday at Vietnam National University, Gates reiterated US support for multilateral negotiations, saying that 'relying exclusively on bilateral relationships is not enough.'

But Liang Tuesday congratulated the ADMM+ meeting for making no strong moves towards multilateral talks.

'Practical cooperation within multilateral frameworks does not mean settling all security issues, which is not consistent with the principles of gradualism and taking into account the comfort levels of all parties,' Liang said.

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