Southeast Asian defense chiefs meet in Laos as maritime disputes with China are flaring

Southeast Asian defense chiefs and representatives met in Laos yesterday for security talks at a time of increasing maritime disputes with China in the Asia-Pacific and as the transition to a new U.S. president looms.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was set to join the meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers in Vientiane, where many will be looking for assurances before President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power in January.

Austin just wrapped up meetings in Australia with officials there and Japan’s defense minister, where they pledged their support for ASEAN and their “serious concern about destabilizing 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.”

In addition to the United States, other nations attending the two-day ASEAN meetings include Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and China.

Along with the Philippines, ASEAN member states Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims with China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost entirely as its own territory.

Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos are the other ASEAN members.

Opening the talks, Laotian Defense Minister Chansamone Chanyalath said he hoped for productive meetings that would “become a standard for us to continue ASEAN’s cooperation in defense, including how to handle, thwart, and manage security threats in the present and in the future.”

As China has been more assertively pushing its claims in recent years, ASEAN members and Beijing have been negotiating a code of conduct to govern behavior in the sea, but progress has been slow.

Officials have agreed to try to complete the code by 2026, but talks have been hampered by sticky issues, including disagreements over whether the pact should be binding.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has called for more urgency in the code of conduct negotiations, complained at the meeting of ASEAN leaders last month that his country “continues to be subject to harassment and intimidation” by China’s actions.

At the meeting of ASEAN leaders last month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes.”

He pledged that the U.S. would “continue to support freedom of navigation, and freedom of overflight in the Indo Pacific.”

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said U.S. and other non-regional militaries present in the sea were the main source of instability.

“The increasing military deployment and activities in the South China Sea by the U.S. and a few other non-regional countries, stoking confrontation and creating tensions, are the greatest source of instability for peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Mao said.

It is not yet clear how the incoming Trump administration will address the South China Sea situation.

After Austin’s meetings in Australia, the Defense Department said the U.S., Australia and Japan had agreed to expand joint drills and announced a defense consultation body among the three countries’ forces to strengthen their cooperation. JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI, VIENTIANE, MDT/AP