Tianjin To Host ASEAN-China Meeting On South China Sea

By Niam Seet Wei BEIJING, July 24 (Bernama) -- The ninth ASEAN-China Senior Officials' Meeting on the Implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) will be held in Tianjin on July 29, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Senior diplomats from the ASEAN countries would join China's Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin at the meeting to discuss how to fully and effectively implement the DOC, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement Friday. The meeting would emphasise pragmatic maritime cooperation and advance the consultation on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC) under the framework of implementing the DOC, he added. The 10 ASEAN member nations, comprising Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, signed the DOC with China in 2002 to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea. China and several ASEAN countries, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam, have overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea. China has always preferred to solve the disputes through direct and bilateral negotiations with each of the claimant states. -- BERNAMA