Other members agree not to raise maritime dispute
China on Wednesday stressed that the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting is not the proper venue for discussions on the South China Sea, in response to a reported U.S. intention to raise the issue during the meeting.
"APEC is not a proper venue to talk about the relevant sensitive issue, and must not facilitate any practice of playing up sensitive issues," Hong Lei, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, told a Wednesday briefing.
Speaking on the meeting in the Philippines from November 17 to 19, Mark Toner, the U.S. State Department spokesman, said that the South China Sea issue would likely come up on the sidelines of the meeting if it is not on the agenda, Reuters reported.
Liu Feng, a Hainan-based maritime expert, said the move was "unwise," adding that there is a consensus that the meeting will and should prioritize economic development and cooperation, a theme that outweighs anything else. "It's also unfair to other countries that are not involved in the issue, for their interests would be damaged if the meeting is distracted by irrelevant issues," Liu told the Global Times.
China and the Philippines have agreed not to raise the South China Sea issue during the meeting.
Other APEC members, such as Singapore and Thailand, are also against tackling the issue, and countries involved in the issue, such as Vietnam and Malaysia, also showed no intention to raise the issue during the meeting, said Liu.
Though the U.S. will fail and trigger nothing but dissatisfaction from other APEC members, it will not miss a chance to challenge China, and the same is true with its ally Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may focus on freedom of navigation and talk about Beijing's island building activities in the South China Sea during the meeting, Japan's Nikkei newspaper reported.
The Philippine department of foreign affairs announced Tuesday that oral arguments on the South China Sea arbitration case would be heard from November 24 to 30 at The Hague.
China's foreign ministry has said that the Philippines' decision to seek arbitration was "a political provocation under the cloak of law," and the court's ruling on the jurisdiction and admissibility of the South China Sea is null and void.
"We do not want this knot to become tighter and tighter, so that it even becomes a dead knot," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted by Reuters as saying on Tuesday.
Chen Xiangmiao, a research fellow at the National Institute for the South China Sea, that the reason why the Philippines won't let go of the arbitration is to gain international sympathy and pressure China into yielding.
