Southeast Asian defence chiefs hold discussion over regional security with US, China, other partner nations
Vientiane: Southeast Asian defence chiefs met on Thursday with their counterparts from China, the United States and other nations in Laos for security talks, which come as Beijing’s increasingly assertive stance in its claim to most of the South China Sea is leading to more confrontations.
The closed-door talks put US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun in the same room, a day after Dong refused a request to meet with Austin one-on-one on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit of defence ministers.
The US and China have been working to improve frayed military-to-military communications and Austin said he regretted Dong’s decision, calling it “a setback for the whole region”.
A Chinese statement indicated that Beijing was unhappy with US actions related to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims. The US recently approved USD 2 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, including an advanced surface-to-air missile defence system.
“The US side cannot undermine China’s core interests on the Taiwan issue while conducting exchanges with the Chinese military as if nothing had happened,” Defence Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said in a statement posted online Thursday.
The ASEAN meetings come as member nations are looking warily toward the change in American administrations at a time of increasing maritime disputes with China.
The US has firmly pushed a “free and open Indo-Pacific” policy under outgoing President Joe Biden and it is not yet clear how the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump will address the South China Sea situation.
Dong called for resolving issues through dialogue and not provoking disputes or introducing external forces, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Beijing believes that US backing has emboldened the Philippines to act more assertively in its South China Sea disputes with China.
Other nations attending the ASEAN meeting from outside Southeast Asia include Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. The meetings with the ASEAN dialogue partners were also expected address tensions in the Korean Peninsula, the Russia-Ukraine war, and wars in the Middle East.
Before heading to Laos, Austin concluded meetings in Australia with officials there and with Japan’s defence minister. They pledged to support ASEAN and expressed their “serious concern about destabilising actions in the East and South China Seas, including dangerous conduct by the People’s Republic of China against Philippines and other coastal state vessels”.
Along with the Philippines, ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims with China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost entirely as its own territory.
