China and ASEAN agree to try to conclude nonaggression pact on sea feud in 3 years
China and Southeast Asian nations have agreed to try to conclude within three years a long-delayed nonaggression pact aimed at preventing frequent territorial spats in the busy South China Sea from turning into a major armed conflict
JAKARTA, Indonesia — China and Southeast Asian nations agreed Thursday to try and conclude within three years a long-delayed nonaggression pact aimed at preventing the frequent territorial spats in the busy South China Sea from turning into a major armed conflict.
China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed Thursday during a meeting between the 10-nation bloc’s foreign ministers and China’s top diplomat Wang Yi in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta to guidelines to complete their code of conduct negotiations before fall 2026, a Southeast Asian diplomat involved in the meetings told The Associated Press.
The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to a lack of authority to discuss the issue publicly ahead of the official announcement of the agreement.
China and four of ASEAN’s member states — Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam — along with Taiwan have been locked in a decades-long territorial standoff in the disputed waterway, a key passageway for global trade that is believed to be sitting atop vast undersea deposits of oil and gas.
The contested territory has long been feared as an Asian flashpoint and has become a sensitive front in the U.S.-China rivalry in the region.
A joint working group by China and ASEAN “should endeavor to conclude the negotiation of an effective and substantive code of conduct, in accordance with international law, including the 1982 U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea, within a 3-year timeline or earlier,” according to the
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