AN ANNUAL round of Asian regional summitry has ended with few signs of progress towards easing rising tensions in the South China Sea. No sooner had the leaders left the meetings that it was reported in China that the People’s Liberation Army had commissioned a new logistics vessel, the largest-ever, to supply its troops on the far off islands, rocks and reefs China controls in the disputed waters. And a foreign-ministry official confirmed that China will continue building on the controversial man-made islands it has created on top of tiny rocks and reefs.
If any international forum offered hope of cooling tempers, it was the East Asia Summit, which convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, on November 22nd. It groups the ten members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), four of which have territorial claims in the sea, with eight other countries, including China, which claims virtually all the sea, and America, which says it has a vital national interest in safeguarding the freedom of navigation there. It got nowhere.
America made much of the fact that President Barack Obama was at least there, despite crises...Continue reading
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