Southeast Asian leaders met in Brunei yesterday for talks aimed at easing tensions over the South China Sea and building momentum towards groundbreaking economic partnerships.
The annual summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) began in the capital of the oil-rich sultanate with a dinner in which the leaders were looking to rebuild unity after unprecedented infighting last year.
The split was over how much pressure the group should try to apply to China over competing territorial claims to the resource-rich South China Sea.
But a push by the Philippines and Vietnam for Asean to send a united message to an increasingly assertive China crumbled amid resistance from Cambodia, a close Chinese ally that held the rotating chair of the bloc in 2012.
Asean leaders will make a united call in an end-of-summit statement for talks with China on the issue, but they will avoid any strong language, according to a draft of the document obtained by AFP.
But the draft made no mention of when they would hope to clinch a deal on the code.
Source: The Daily Star
