Indonesia's Yudhoyono urges ASEAN to set guidelines on Spratlys

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday urged foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to hasten the adoption of guidelines on the Declaration of Conduct (DOC) on the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea). The document is expected to ease tensions between China and the four other countries that have territorial claims on the Spratlys Islands. In an address to the 44th ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, Yudhoyono said the guidelines for the DOC is long overdue. “Things do not necessarily have to be this slow," said the Indonesian leader. The DOC was adopted in 1992 and signed in by ASEAN and China a decade later in 2002. “I asked the Foreign Ministers’… to step up… efforts, to complete that last mile on this important confidence-building document. We need to send a strong signal to the world that the future of the South China Sea is a predictable, manageable and optimistic one," Yudhoyono said. External challenges to ASEAN Yudhoyono added that global challenges such as the financial turmoil in Europe and the United States, the series of uprisings in the Arab world and persistent oil price increases are huge factors in ASEAN’s goal of establishing a single market by 2015 to encourage trade and investments in the region. He added that emerging economies in Southeast Asia “continue to grow and drive global economic recovery" but external factors are hampering the growth of ASEAN members. Europe’s economic setbacks because of the Greece bail out and the debates in the US over the debt ceiling all had a negative impact on the global economy, he said. He added that the region also has to contend with the unpredictable prices of oil and petroleum products aggravated by the “Arab spring," or the wave of uprisings in Arab countries and shaky regional security because of stalls in the six-party talks that aim to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. On top of this, the Southeast Asian region will also be affected as Japan continues to recover from the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country in March. Adoption of DOC guidelines Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto del Rosario is expected to push for the adoption of the DOC guidelines during the Foreign Ministers Meeting and the proposed ASEAN-China Ad Hoc meeting of Foreign Ministers taking place Wednesday. The adoption of the DOC guidelines will “segregate" disputed areas from non-disputed areas, which will counter China’s claim that it has rights over the whole region which they call the Nansha islands. ASEAN leaders will discuss the matter Wednesday during a meeting with Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also expected to meet with leaders in the region during the Asian Regional Forum (ARF), where they will be discussing regional threats such as China’s increased military intrusions in the disputed South China Sea (West Philippine Sea), terrorism and transnational crimes. On Monday it was announced that five Filipino lawmakers from the House of Representatives would be visiting Kalayaan Island also Wednesday to “support" the country’s claim over it. Chinese officials have already expressed their “concern" over the planned visit, saying that “it goes against the spirit of the DOC." ASEAN is composed of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, Singapore and Myanmar. The ARF, meanwhile, includes the 10 ASEAN members and regional dialogue partners that include Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, European Union, India, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Russia, East Timor, US and Sri Lanka. — With Bea Cupin/VS, GMA News