Urges members to take a stronger stand

Vietnam urged other Southeast Asian nations to take a stronger stand against Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea, as a tense regional security forum began on Saturday with North Korea also under fire over its nuclear programme.

Ahead of the launch of the annual gathering of Foreign Ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Vietnam made a bold play against China with a raft of suggested changes to a planned joint communiqué. It set the stage for a fiery few days of diplomacy, with the top diplomats from China, the U.S. Russia and North Korea to join their counterparts for security talks from Sunday.

After their own day of meetings on Saturday, ASEAN Foreign Ministers released a joint statement expressing “grave concerns” over the North’s first two intercontinental ballistic missile tests conducted last month. But on the South China Sea dispute, there was far less consensus with Vietnam resisting efforts by the Philippines to placate Beijing, said diplomats.