PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —
Indonesia asked Southeast Asian countries and China on Friday to
establish emergency communication lines to allow officials to rapidly
contain any potential outbreak of violence in disputed South China Sea
territories as a solution to the long-unresolved conflicts remained
elusive.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa made the call on the eve
of an annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in
the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, where the territorial conflicts were
expected to dominate the discussions on a range of regional concerns
that include human rights and a proposed regional free-trade pact.
The disputes have long been feared as Asia's next potential flashpoint.
Indonesia's
proposal reflects growing apprehension over a lack of a clear prospect
of immediately resolving the overlapping territorial claims by China,
Taiwan and four countries belonging to the 10-member ASEAN - Brunei,
Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam - in the South China Sea.
While
all the rival claimants have pledged to peacefully resolve their
disputes, Natalegawa feared an accidental clash could get out of hand if
governments did not have lines of communications devoted to rapidly
contain an outbreak of violence.
Top officials and authorities
should set up hotlines and commit to talk and take steps to extinguish
any violence that might erupt, he said.
"It's just a simple
commitment, political commitment by countries of ASEAN and China that if
there were to be future incidents, let's pick up the phone and chat and
discuss what has happened," Natalegawa said.
"The real challenge
for us is miscalculation, misunderstanding, misperception," he told
reporters after meeting his ASEAN counterparts over dinner in Phnom
Penh. "When there are issues, it's the time for diplomacy to work, not
to shut down."
China and the ASEAN signed a nonbinding declaration
in 2002 that urged rival governments to avoid acts that touch off
violent confrontations, including occupying new islands or reefs.
Both
sides have agreed to work to come up with a stronger and
legally-binding "code of conduct" after fresh altercations involving
China, Vietnam and the Philippines ratcheted tensions anew in the
disputed waters. A long-running territorial feud between China and Japan
has also flared up recently, compounding regional worries.
One
dilemma is China's demand to negotiate one on one with each of the other
rival claimant countries, a strategy aimed at shutting out any
involvement of the United States, which has been warned by Beijing to
keep out of the disputes. The United States and China's rival claimants
have incensed Beijing by bringing the conflicts to international forums
like ASEAN and calling for the involvement of other governments in a
search for a peaceful resolution.
Washington has declared that the
peaceful resolution of the conflicts and freedom of navigation in the
contested waters were in the U.S. national interest, suggesting it would
take action to thwart any hostile act that could threaten the stability
across the sea, which has one of the world's busiest commercial sea
lanes.
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