The little Kingdom of Laos with a population merely 6 millions should ignore the president of the 1.4 billion people and issue a jointly concensus statements regarding the South China Sea? It was only after 3 hours of a joint statement was issued not after sunset, the Malaysia immediately retracted it. Laos should be say no?
Newswire AFP ran a story quoting the statement that Asean has “serious concerns” over recent events in the disputed South China Sea.
But barely three hours later AFP ran another report saying Asean countries had retracted the same statement, adding that Malaysia said “urgent amendments” would be made.
“We have to retract the media statement by the Asean foreign ministers ... as there are urgent amendments to be made,” a Malaysian foreign ministry spokeswoman was quoted by AFP.
AFP quoted the spokeswoman as saying the Asean Secretariat approved the release of the statement, then later informed the ministry it was being retracted.
“But this is not a problem between China and Asean and should not affect the cooperation between China and Asean,” he said. “China and Asean’s cooperation far exceeds their differences, including the South China Sea issue.”
But some officials believed that the prepared statement was retracted because Laos was not agreeable to it at the last minute.
The ministers initially agreed to the communique, but it was withdrawn after China lobbied Laos, holder of the rotating Asean chair, the person said, asking not to be identified because of the confidential nature of the talks.
About three hours after it was released on Tuesday night, Malaysia said the statement needed to be retracted for urgent changes. An amended version has not been released.
An officer in the press department of the Laos foreign affairs ministry who would not give his name said by phone he was aware the statement had been retracted, but didn’t know why. He referred inquiries to the ministry’s Asean department, which didn’t answer calls. China’s trade with Laos rose nearly 20 times to US$2.7 billion in the 10 years to 2015.
http://www2.theedgemarkets.com/en/article/south-china-sea-talks-end-disarray-china-lobbies-laos
