The
Chinese Ministry of Defense confirmed that the meeting of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, had failed to conclude
a joint declaration, and it blamed “the individual country (countries)
out of the region.” In a statement on its website, the ministry implied,
but did not name, the United States as the main reason for the
breakdown in the discussions.
The
ministry did not mention the South China Sea or China’s insistence that
the statement not include any mention of the strategic waterway.
Diplomats
from countries in the region said that China had pushed for even a
factual statement of the South China Sea to be absent from the joint
declaration scheduled for the end of the gathering Wednesday afternoon.
China
maintains that its territorial claims in the South China Sea must be
discussed with individual countries that also have claims. It has
consistently opposed efforts to have conflicting claims discussed in a
regional setting like Asean, whose defense ministers are meeting in
Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, with their counterparts from
Australia, India, Japan and the United States.
“The
responsibility fully rests on the individual country (countries) out of
the region as the meeting failed to issue the joint statement as
scheduled,” the Chinese Defense Ministry said on its website.
The
American defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter, was attending the
meeting, and the United States led the effort to have the sea accorded a
place in the communiqué, the diplomats said. Mr. Carter met with
China’s minister of defense, Chang Wanquan, on Tuesday in Malaysia,
where the South China Sea was high on the agenda.
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