Winter is the season of diplomacy in Southeast Asia. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) holds one of its two annual meetings at this time, along with the East Asia Summit (EAS), the pan-Asia forum that will see the United States and Russia joining its ranks this year.
For India, too, the last quarter of the year is increasingly becoming a major period for pushing forward its ‘Look East’ policy.
Last year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Vietnam for the Asean summit and the EAS after firming up the comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) during his visit to Japan as well as announcing the completion of CECA negotiations with Malaysia when in Kuala Lumpur. He also met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of the summits in Hanoi.
After travelling to France for the G-20 meetings and to the Maldives for the South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation summit this month, Singh will arrive in the Indonesian island of Bali on November 17 for the Asean summit and the EAS.
Apart from the India-Asean summit, he will also hold four bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the fora.
Singh would meet US President Barack Obama, China’s Wen Jiabao, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in separate bilateral meetings in Bali, diplomatic sources confirmed. Three out of the four leaders visited India last year.
Moreover, besides from the importance of Singh’s meeting with Obama, with the two having last met almost a year ago, the engagement with Wen will be the leaders’ first after the maiden China-India strategic economic dialogue in September.
SOUTH CHINA SEA CODE OF CONDUCT
Meanwhile, on the second day of meetings among the senior representatives of Asean member states, there seems to have been some progress on the implementation of the Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea agreed upon in 2002.
Maintaining that there were “no divergent views within Asean” members, Djauhari Oratmangun, the Indonesian foreign ministry’s Director-General for Asean Cooperation, said meetings today had aimed to “identify possible elements” for the proposed code of conduct.
“We discussed which projects will be implemented by Asean and China. Of course, Asean is going to make a proposal on Asean projects. China has already presented its proposal to us,” Oratmangun told reporters here.
He added senior officials from Asean and China would meet in the first week of December to hammer out a list of specific projects that would constitute “cooperative activities” to be jointly worked up by both parties.
The South China Sea has been central to rising tensions in the region, with several member states, including Vietnam and the Philippines, and China laying claims to certain parts of the waterway, which is among the busiest shipping routes in the world.
The disputed waters are also believed to contain substantial energy resources and recent altercations have been over exploration and production activities.
