South China Sea Will Not Surface at Asean

Cambodia, in its role as Asean chair, has decided that the thorny issue of the South China Sea will not be on the agenda at next month’s Asean Summit in Phnom Penh, CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap announced yesterday. “Cambodia is a neutral country, and based on our position to promote peace and economic development in the region, Cambodia will not put the South China Sea on the agenda,” Mr. Yeap said. Mr. Yeap made the announcement during a conference organized by the Center for Asian Strategic Studies-India and the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace to discuss a legally binding Code of Conduct to prevent conflict over the maritime territorial dispute between China and Asean members in the South China Sea. … Vo Xuan Vinh, a Vietnamese researcher at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Vietnam, said that Cambodia could not call itself a neutral observer of the South China Sea dispute. “I know that Cambodia does not have direct interests there but [it] has indirect interests. I think the South China Sea should be an issue in the agenda of the Asean summit—it is very important,” Mr. Xuan Vinh said. …