VIENTIANE – Southeast Asian defense chiefs and representatives are meeting in the Laotian capital on Wednesday for security talks at a time of increasing maritime disputes with China in the Asia-Pacific and as the transition to a new U.S. president looms.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was set to join the meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers in Vientiane, where many will be looking for assurances ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to power in January.
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Austin just wrapped up meetings in Australia with officials there and Japan's defense minister, where they pledged their ongoing support for ASEAN and their “serious concern about destabilizing actions in the East and South China Seas, including dangerous conduct by the People's Republic of China against Philippines and other coastal state vessels.”
In addition to the United States, other nations attending the two-day ASEAN meetings include Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and China.
Along with the Philippines, ASEAN member states Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei all have competing claims with China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in entirety as its own territory.
Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos make up the rest of the member states.
As China has been more assertively pushing its claims in recent years, ASEAN members and Beijing have been negotiating a code of conduct to govern behavior in the sea for years, but progress has been slow.
Officials have agreed to try and complete the code by 2026, but talks have been hampered by sticky issues, including disagreements over whether the pact should be binding.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has called for more urgency in the code of conduct negotiations, complained at the meeting of ASEAN leaders last month that his country “continues to be subject to harassment and intimidation” by China’s actions, which he said violated international law.
Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed repeatedly this year, and Vietnam in October charged that Chinese forces assaulted its fishermen in disputed areas in the South China Sea. China has also sent patrol vessels to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia claim as exclusive economic zones.
At the meeting of ASEAN leaders last month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was "very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes.”
He pledged that the U.S. would "continue to support freedom of navigation, and freedom of overflight in the Indo Pacific.”
In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said U.S. and other military presences from outside the region were the main source of instability in the sea.
“The increasing military deployment and activities in the South China Sea by the U.S. and a few other non-regional countries, stoking confrontation and creating tensions, are the greatest source of instability for peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Mao said.
It is not yet clear how the incoming Trump administration will address the South China Sea situation.
After Austin's meetings in Australia, the Defense Department said the U.S., Australia and Japan had agreed to expand joint drills in the region, and announced a defense consultation body among the three countries’ forces to strengthen their cooperation.
When asked Tuesday while in the Philippines about whether the strong U.S. defense support would continue for the country under Trump, Austin said he would not speculate.
It remained unclear whether Austin plans to meet China's Defense Minister Dong Jun on the sidelines of the ASEAN meetings, but Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani is expected to meet with Dong to express his concerns over Beijing's military activities, Japan's NHK reported.
Japan has protested that a Chinese military aircraft violated its airspace briefly in August, and in September Japan expressed “serious concerns” after a Chinese aircraft carrier and two destroyers sailed between two Japanese islands.
The meetings are also likely to touch on the ongoing tensions in the Korean Peninsula, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the escalating conflict in the Middle East. They also expect to hold talks on a range of issues, including natural disasters, cybersecurity and terrorism.
Another thorny security issue in the region also includes the civil war and growing humanitarian crisis in ASEAN member Myanmar. The group's credibility has been severely tested by the war in Myanmar, where the army ousted an elected government in 2021, and fighting has continued with pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic rebels.
More than a year into an offensive initiated by three militias and joined by other resistance groups, observers estimate that less than half the country’s territory remains under the army’s control.
Myanmar military rulers have been barred from ASEAN meetings since late 2021, but this year, the country has been represented by high-level bureaucrats, including at the summit in October.
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Associated Press writer David Rising in Bangkok contributed to this report.