Chinese Foreign Minister: South China Sea issues must not become a stumbling block to our relations with ASEAN

Beijing, July 21 (KUNA) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday that the South China Sea is a shared home for the countries of the region and that “South China Sea issues should not become a stumbling block” to relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Xinhua News Agency reported that these remarks were made during a meeting between the Chinese minister and ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn in Manila, on the sidelines of the meeting of the foreign ministers of China and ASEAN countries. The agency quoted Wang Yi as saying that “some forces within the ranks of the Philippine military and maritime law enforcement deliberately provoked incidents in the South China Sea to serve the interests of external powers, undermining the process of improving China-Philippines relations as well as achieving peace and stability in the South China Sea.” He expressed “China’s readiness to work with ASEAN to remove destabilizing factors, accelerate consultations on a code of conduct in the South China Sea, jointly enhance a new narrative of peace, stability, cooperation, and friendship in the South China Sea, and keep the initiative on South China Sea issues in the hands of the countries of the region.” For his part, Kao Kim Hourn praised the development of relations between China and ASEAN during the meeting, noting that the two sides had established 65 cooperation mechanisms and raised the level of their free trade area, with bilateral trade volume exceeding one trillion US dollars last year. He said that next year marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea,” reaffirming ASEAN’s commitment to making the sea a zone of peace, cooperation, and friendship, in service of prosperity and development in the Asia-Pacific region. Wang’s comments come after new clashes involving oars and sticks broke out yesterday, Monday, between members of the Chinese coast guard and soldiers from the Philippine navy aboard a Philippine vessel anchored at the disputed Ren’ai Jiao (Second Thomas Shoal) reef. (End) S L Q / M A H A