(20 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++AUDIO PART MUTE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vientiane, Laos – 20 November 2024
1. ASEAN Defense Ministers members sit ahead of meeting
2. Various of meeting ++PART MUTE++
3. Conference chair addresses meeting
STORYLINE:
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 is 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.
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 it 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 behaviour at 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.
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