www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/26 September 2012
Indonesia is sending south-east Asian nations a draft code of conduct
for the South China Sea, hoping for progress before a regional summit
in November.
Foreign minister Marty Natalegawa has been trying to
patch up differences among Association of South-east Asian Nations
(Asean) members on how to manage the maritime territorial disputes that
pit China against several of its neighbours in a region where sea lanes
are crucial to world trade, rich fishing grounds and potentially major
reserves of natural gas and oil.
He said the situation in the
region - also rattled by a separate island dispute between China and
Japan - was very troubling, but countries including China appreciated
they had much to lose from conflict.
"There's a recognition that
the countries of the region have prospered and have developed precisely
because there's been very benign, stable conditions," Mr Natalegawa
said in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General
Assembly's annual gathering of world leaders. "This is something we
don't want to be tinkering with. It could become like a Pandora's box."
China,
which claims most of the South China Sea, upped the ante in July in its
sharp disagreements with the Philippines and Vietnam over who owns what
by establishing a military garrison, which Beijing claims will
administer a vast area of sea and tiny islands scattered across it.
Beijing
wants to settle conflicting claims with individual nations rather than
through a multilateral mechanism that will give the smaller members
greater clout in negotiations.
Mr Natelagawa, who met his Chinese
counterpart on Tuesday, said there had been some adjustment in China's
position. He said China recognised "as much as anyone else" the need
for diplomatic progress, including implementing a declaration of
conduct - the non-binding agreement that Beijing signed up to with
Asean, in 2002. The code of conduct on peacefully resolving the South
China Sea sovereignty disputes is intended as the mechanism for putting
that declaration into practice.
"What we are looking for is a
basic rules-of-the-road type of arrangement for the South China Sea,"
said Mr Natelagawa, "so that countries behave in a manner that is
expected of them in maintaining stability."
In his speech to the
UN, Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the disputes had
been festering for the better part of a century and Asean was engaged
in "earnest negotiations" for a legally-binding code of conduct.
Mr
Natelagawa said "we will begin to test the waters" on the draft code in
consultations with south-east Asian governments this week in New York,
hoping for progress before a summit of east Asian leaders to be held in
Cambodia in November. He said that was needed so the disputes don't run
"out of control".
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