TODAY’S HEADLINE | Anticipating surprise from Chinaʼs FM Qin on South China Sea CoC
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo onboard the Imam Bonjol warship in Indonesia’s Natuna Islands in the South China Sea on June 23, 2016. The President visited remote Indonesian islands on a warship on June 23 in an apparent show of force after clashes with Chinese vessels and as fears grow Beijing is seeking to stake a claim in the area. (AFP/Presidential Palace)
There are strong reasons to believe that newly appointed Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang will give his ASEAN counterparts a pleasant surprise by instructing China’s negotiators to make significant progress at this week’s meeting in Jakarta on the Code of Conduct (CoC) for the South China Sea.
But ASEAN should realize that the agreement the two parties reached in 2002 can no longer serve as the basis for negotiations.
Memento Maxima Digital MarketingDuring his visit to Jakarta on Feb. 22, Qin promptly fulfilled his promise to Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi to speed up negotiations with ASEAN on the CoC, which has gone nowhere since the two sides agreed to start the talks just over two decades ago.
Indonesia will host the crucial meeting on March 8-10, to be attended by senior officials from the 10 ASEAN member states and China.
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Kornelius Purba
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
● Mon, March 6 2023
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