S. China Sea solution not on the horizon

S. China Sea solution not on the horizon

JAKARTA (AFP): Despite a new openness in the region, territorial disputes on overlapping maritime boundaries in the South China Sea have yet to move closer to a viable solution, Pacific Rim officials say.

As a result, Asian nations would have to remain on guard to avoid igniting these potential powder kegs, especially in the garrisoned Spratly and Paracel islands, they said.

All the claimants save Taiwan met for the third year running on Wednesday among 21 participants of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) for talks on political and security issues.

But the South China Sea, potentially the most explosive of those issues, got only a passing mention as the Jakarta participants tacitly acknowledged they would be unable to take the matter significantly further.

"We have not yet reached the point where some of the things we have decided informally" could be elevated into an "inter- governmental effort," Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said at the end of the meeting.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members in the contest, have at various times expressed varying degrees of enthusiasm toward resolving the conflict in a formal multilateral talks.

However, China, the 800-pound gorilla in the dispute, has "not really" budged from its original position that the quarrels be resolved on a bilateral basis, an ASEAN official said.

Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province, is the other claimant.

The 21 ARF members have yet to agree on the advancement of the three-year-old security forum into a formal body to resolve disputes. China, notably, wants it to remain as a forum for security and political issues.