Premier’s plea for South China Sea of peace
Print Edition
Premier Li Keqiang called for a South China Sea of “peace, friendship and cooperation” during a meeting with the heads of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the oil-flush sultanate of Brunei yesterday.
“A peaceful South China Sea is a blessing for all,” Li told the leaders. “We need to work together to make the South China Sea a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation.”
Li said China looks forward to signing a treaty on good-neighborliness, friendship and cooperation with the ASEAN to steer bilateral relations forward.
Good-neighborliness is a treasure for China-ASEAN cooperation and a baseline to which the two sides should firmly stick, he said at the China-ASEAN leaders’ meeting in Bandar Seri Begawan, the Brunei capital. China’s new leadership, said Li, regards ASEAN as a priority in Beijing’s diplomacy with neighboring countries.
A treaty will not only convey their shared confidence and determination to maintain regional peace and stability, and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, but provide legal and institutional safeguards for bilateral strategic cooperation to move further forward, he added.
He called for the two sides to ramp up efforts to more than double China-ASEAN trade to US$1 trillion by 2020, from about US$400 billion last year.
China plans to establish an Asian investment bank to help finance infrastructure projects in the region, Li said in an interview with the local Borneo Bulletin newspaper.
Li and the Southeast Asian leaders were all smiles as they cut a giant blue and pink cake to mark the 10th anniversary of a China-ASEAN strategic partnership.
While trade is high in the agenda in Brunei, long-seething rifts over contested territories in the South China Sea are once again sparking friction.
China has called for settling disputes there through negotiations with individual claimants. It has also frowned on what it sees as US meddling in a regional issue.
China agreed this year to hold “consultations” with ASEAN on a code of conduct for disputes in the area.
Li said yesterday that talks last month were a success and China would be willing to build on that.
“We’ve always agreed that South China Sea disputes should be dealt with in a direct way, and to seek a resolution through negotiations and talks,” Li said at the summit. However, he maintained China was “unshakable in its resolve to uphold national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The two days of talks in Brunei began with an annual ASEAN summit followed by the bloc’s separate meetings with Japan, South Korea, China and the US.
Japan’s ties with China — as well as with South Korea — have also been tense due to territorial disputes. The three countries each held separate talks with the ASEAN bloc yesterday and will join in a group gathering today. However, China has ruled out bilateral talks between Li and Japan’s leader Shinzo Abe in Brunei.
ASEAN, a vibrant region of 600 million people, wants to establish a common market and manufacturing base, but there are growing doubts about whether it will meet a 2015 target.
“With two years left to go we still face challenges in implementing our community roadmap,” Brunei’s ruler Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah told his counterparts.
ASEAN is also pushing an ambitious 16-nation free trade zone called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that involves China.
The initiative is seen as rivaling the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade pact championed by Washington.
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