The East Asia Summit (ESA) was held in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on Friday, October 11th, where the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its eight partner countries gathered. Despite the summit, no joint statement was issued at the conclusion of the meeting.
On Saturday, October 12th, a U.S. official told Reuters that China and Russia had blocked a draft joint statement prepared by the ASEAN countries, primarily due to objections over the wording related to the contentious South China Sea issue.
According to Reuters, the ASEAN member states had submitted a draft joint statement for the East Asia Summit on Thursday, October 10th.
The official, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “ASEAN put forward this final draft and indicated that it was essentially a take-it-or-leave-it proposal.”
The official mentioned that the United States, Japan, Australia, South Korea, and India expressed their support for the statement, while China and Russia stated they could not and would not allow the statement to proceed.
The U.S. official noted that there were several contentious issues with the statement, but the most critical one involved the reference to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), taking a step further than the 2023 statement.
The official added, “Of course, there were no specific confrontational details in the statement, and it did not lean towards any party.”
The draft proposed an addition to the 2023 approved statement based on a United Nations resolution, stating that the UNCLOS “establishes the legal framework to which all maritime activities must adhere.”
China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea and has increased pressure on other claimant countries, including several ASEAN nations, notably the Philippines. ASEAN has long sought negotiations with Beijing on a code of conduct for the strategic waterway, with some member states insisting on the basis of UNCLOS.
However, as a signatory to UNCLOS, China has expressed readiness for negotiations on related issues but has refused to acknowledge the 2016 Hague ruling on the South China Sea, which found China’s claims lacking legal basis.
Another contentious clause in the draft indicated that the international environment, including the “South China Sea, Korean Peninsula, Myanmar, Ukraine, and the Middle East region,” posed challenges to the area.