August 1, 2012
ASEAN and China: Calming the South China Sea
by Gareth Evans @http://www.gevans.org
The South China Sea – long regarded, together with the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula, as one of East Asia’s three major flashpoints – is making waves again. China’s announcement of a troop deployment to the Paracel Islands follows a month in which competing territorial claimants heightened their rhetoric, China’s naval presence in disputed areas became more visible, and the Chinese divided the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose Foreign Ministers could not agree on a communiqué for the first time in 45 years.
All of this has jangled nerves – as did similar military posturing and diplomatic arm wrestling from 2009 to mid-2011. Little wonder: stretching from Singapore to Taiwan, the South China Sea is the world’s second-busiest sea-lane, with one-third of global shipping transiting through it.
More neighboring states have more claims to more parts of the South China Sea – and tend to push those claims with more strident nationalism – than is the case with any comparable body of water. And now it is seen as a major testing ground for Sino-American rivalry, with China stretching its new wings, and the United States trying to clip them enough to maintain its own regional and global primacy. Read On: Gareth Evans: On South China Sea
ASEAN, get your act together. Be more business like and focused so that Southeast Asia will not be a theater of US-China rivalry, reminiscent of the Vietnam War era. Act with one clear purpose if you are to regain the respect of the people of Southeast Asia.–Din Merican
Do the the Philipines claimed the disputed sea as ” West Philippines Sea”?…Since when?…Perhaps Malaysia should have regarded it as “North Sabah Sea” ??… and Vietnam might called it “East Vietnam Sea”??…Anyway who gave China the right to named as it is??…
Dear Barry, Might is Right, China through out the ages has always been a force to be reckon with,it’s just that History as you know it,was written by the West. With regards to the subject matter,I have deep suspicions that the powerful Arms Industries whichever countries they belong to,welcome New Theaters of Conflict,where there’s none,they will create one.Simple actually, Theory of Supply & Demand.I have commented much earlier what the author likewise is thinking.Truth is sometimes very ugly.
There is no such thing as a peaceful rise of China,not possible after nearly 200 years of foreign humiliation, invasion, civil war, revolution and unspeakable horrors,it is karma.
Cambodia and possibly Laos are the parasites on ASEAN,it is impossible for ASEAN to face this challenge.
China seems to be on track to be the number one economic power(GDP wise)in the world,it is determined to catch up militarily.
When the President of Indonesia who is the only ASEAN leader able to stand up to China retires,China will flex its muscle no matter who are in ASEAN then and no matter what ASEAN claims.
Hello Barry
I think the term “South China Sea” was given by the British. Please do no conflagarate the name into sometime explosive.
There are some ASEAN countries who are still holding on to the western umbilical, but they are pretending to be strong.
They may been incited by western powers to make the issue larger and that will legitimize the entries United States, Japan, and Australia into the theatre of dispute for resource mining and defense contracts kickbacks for their poltiical parties.