Asean urged to strengthen maritime security

NEW DELHI – With massive economic activity projected in Southeast Asia in the next few years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN) needs to strengthen maritime security to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, a former foreign secretary of India said.

Shyram Saran, chairman of India’s Research and Information System for Developing Countries, stressed that since all economic activities envisioned under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the US- led Trans-Pacific Partnership are all “dependent on maritime security,” the ASEAN needs to urgently resolve the South China Sea dispute regardless of each member’s territorial claims

“It highly important that rules are never in any way impacted or threatened by any country. This becomes a very important consideration,” Saran told journalists on the sidelines of the Delhi Dialogue VIII yesterday.

“As I mentioned, India’s position has been that there cannot be a unilateral assertion of interest. We recognize that all countries in the region have interest. Because as I said, each one of us, China included, has an interest in the safety and security of the sea lanes, which join Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and the passage of shipping traders through the South China Sea,” he added.

Saran’s statements came on the heels of talks at the USASEAN Summit in California, intended to improve the commercial links and provide a united front on maritime disputes with Beijing.

China has been engaged in militarization of the South China Sea. It has built military facilities on reefs and islands belonging to the Philippines and other claimant countries in the ASEAN.

The Philippines filed a case against China in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an international judicial body established by the United Nations to hear territorial disputes.