ASEAN expresses concern over dispute in S China Sea

Southeast Asian leaders have expressed "serious concern" over worsening territorial disputes in the South China Sea, presenting a rare united front against an increasingly assertive Beijing.

Vietnam and the Philippines led a successful push for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to deliver a thinly veiled rebuke to China over the standoff in waters home to key shipping lanes and thought to contain huge energy reserves.

But a defiant Beijing said Hanoi's efforts to enlist the support of its neighbours in the row were "doomed to fail".

The 10-nation ASEAN, in a statement released today after a summit yesterday, called for a peaceful resolution to the maritime rows, which flared up this month after China moved an oil drilling rig into waters also claimed by Hanoi.

"We expressed serious concerns over the ongoing developments in the South China Sea," said the joint statement from the summit in Myanmar, without explicitly pointing the finger at Beijing.

ASEAN called on all parties involved to "exercise self-restraint, not to resort to threat(s) or use of force, and to resolve disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law".

Observers said the statement marked a change of tone by the regional bloc, many of whose members - including Myanmar - have close economic and political ties with China and have traditionally avoided confrontation with the Asian heavyweight.

Beijing struck a less conciliatory tone today, insisting that the contested Paracel Islands, located near the controversial oil rig, were its "inherent territory".

"The facts show that Vietnam's efforts to rope others into pressuring China are doomed to fail," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing.

Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung slammed Beijing's oil rig move as "extremely dangerous" and accused Chinese vessels of ramming Vietnamese ships in the disputed waters.

"This is the first time China brazenly brings and installs its drilling rig deep into the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone of an ASEAN country, which gravely violates the international law," he said, according to an official transcript of his speech.

The spat triggered large anti-China protests in Vietnam at the weekend that received unprecedented coverage in Vietnam's tightly controlled state media today.

China asserts ownership over almost all of the South China Sea, which is also claimed in part by ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia as well as Taiwan.