China Fumes As Asian Defense Ministers Meeting Skips Joint Declaration

China regrets the failure to publish the joint declaration of the third ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Defense Ministers' Meeting (ADMM).

Responding to a reporter's question, the Information Office of China's Ministry of National Defense said that "The Chinese side has kept close coordination and communication with Malaysia, the rotating chair of the meeting, on the draft of the joint declaration," adding China has reached a consensus with Malaysia and other ASEAN countries on the content of the document.

The Information Office said that under this circumstance, these individual countries should take full responsibility for the absence of the joint declaration.

However, it said some individual countries outside the region ignored the existing consensus and attempted to forcefully add into the declaration contents not discussed during the meeting. China regrets the failure to publish the joint declaration at this meeting, Chinamil reported Wednesday.

Such behavior totally deviated the purposes and principles of the ADMM-Plus, and damaged the central and dominating role of ASEAN in the mechanism.

China hopes that all sides cherish the hard-earned cooperation atmosphere at the ADMM-Plus, adhere to the purposes, principles and aims of the meeting, and play a constructive role in the future development of the mechanism, it added.

Indian Defense Ministry Spokesperson quoted Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar who was part of the the ASEAN defence ministers' meeting as saying, “We hope that the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea would be concluded early by consensus.”