ASEAN TO VOICE CONCERNS OVER CHINA AGGRESSIVE MOVES IN S. CHINA SEA

BALI, Indonesia - Tensions over China's recent aggressive moves in the South China Sea are likely to be reflected at the ninth ASEAN Summit, where the claims of Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei over the same waters will be raised and addressed.
Smaller nations would like to use the ASEAN forum to voice their concern. The United States, which is participating in the summit for the first time, has made it amply clear that freedom of navigation in the South China Sea should not be compromised and all claimants should discuss and find a way out.

• Beijing is livid over Washington's intervention on an issue that it sees as an internal matter, and has categorically said that it does not want to discuss any aspect of theouth China Sea at the Bali summit.
• Some within ASEAN have been urging the United States to play a greater role in South East Asia, to counter China and its increasingly aggressive conduct in the South China Sea.
• Beijing is already warning that the US involvement will only sabotage peace and stability in the region.
• Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see what stand India takes on the issue, since it has huge maritime engagement stakes with the ASEAN countries, especially with Vietnam.
• India is a strong advocate of freedom of navigation and has resolved to carry on maritime engagement with ASEAN countries despite reported objections by China.

At the two-day summit, ASEAN leaders will be joined by U.S. President Barack Obama, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and representative leaders of Russia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand for the newly-expanded East Asia Summit.
Meanwhile, in a significant development, ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, has formally agreed to give Myanmar chairmanship of the Southeast Asian regional bloc in 2014, two years ahead of schedule.

Source: Agency, ANI