BALI, Indonesia—Peacefully resolving maritime disputes between China and its smaller neighbors, drawing North Korea back into nuclear disarmament talks and human rights concerns in military-run Myanmar will top U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's agenda at a Southeast Asian regional security forum Friday.
Clinton will press China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to formalize a draft agreement reached Thursday over their increasingly tense competing claims on territory in the resource-rich and highly strategic South China Sea, U.S. officials said. The two sides agreed on guidelines to govern behavior in the sea, through which one-third of the world's shipping passes. Clinton is expected to offer American ideas on how to make it a success.
"We welcome this; it's an important first step," Kurt Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, told reporters Friday. "It has lowered tensions. It has improved the atmosphere. But clearly it is just that, a first step, and we're going to need to see some follow up actions between China and ASEAN."
Last year, Clinton raised Beijing's ire by saying maritime security in the South China Sea was a U.S. national security interest. She made the matter a central point of her participation in the East Asia Summit hosted by Vietnam.
China, which claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, has been accused in recent months of trying to intimidate oil exploration by the Philippines and Vietnam in waters that are partially claimed also by those two countries and Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia. Beijing long has resisted calls for a binding code of conduct that would require disputes in the waterway to be solved peacefully and without threats of violence.
Campbell told reporters there had been a spike in tensions in the sea over the past several months.
Clinton is to discuss the matter when she meets Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of the annual ASEAN Regional Forum on Friday.
In addition to the South China Sea, Clinton will be pressing the bloc to raise pressure on North Korea to return to negotiations over its nuclear program and to address ongoing rights concerns in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
Talks aimed at ending North Korean's nuclear weapons program have been stalled now for more than two years but Clinton and top diplomats from the other five countries involved in the negotiations -- China, Russia, Japan and North and South Korea -- will be in Bali for the conference, raising hopes for some progress. The U.S., however, on Thursday denied reports that it was seeking high-level bilateral talks with North Korea on the sidelines of the conference.
Clinton also will be seeking regional action on Myanmar. It held elections late last year, officially handing power to a civilian administration after a half-century of military rule and releasing pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. But many see the changes as cosmetic and believe the army will continue to hold sway.
The Obama administration has sought to engage Myanmar to improve conditions, but the policy has produced little concrete results and has not eased sanctions on the country.
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