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SINGAPORE – Eighteen countries, including the United States and China, agreed in principle Saturday to comply with the directives governing potentially dangerous clashes of military aircraft, a step towards stabilization of critical points but which leaves enough leeway to ignore the new standards when a country wants it.
The guidelines broaden the substance of a similar agreement reached by the United States and China three years ago to mitigate incidents and collisions in some of the world's most strained regions.
Many Asian countries have long had territorial disputes with China and its increasingly assertive army in areas such as the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the waters and skies between Japan, the Korean peninsula and China. Growing tensions and increasing military traffic have raised fears that unexpected encounters will escalate into violent escalation.
Singapore's Defense Minister, Ng Eng Hen, welcomed the new guidelines.
Photo:
Don Wong / Associate Press
The agreement in principle, which will be presented for formal adoption by the group of 18 nations next year, took place at an annual meeting of defense ministers under the umbrella of the Association of Nations of the United Nations. Southeast Asia, composed of 10 countries, organized by Singapore. The ASEAN nations officially adopted the new directives themselves on Friday.
"The guidelines are very useful for establishing standards," Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen told reporters after the meeting. "All 18 countries have agreed strong policy support for the guidelines."
Ng said the armed forces accounted for about 90 percent of the world's troops. In addition to China and the United States, Russia, India, Australia, Japan and South Korea, as well as New Zealand, are among these countries.
Members of Asean, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei are grappling with territorial disputes with Beijing over the South China Sea. The strategic importance of the region for trade has attracted the United States, which regularly patrols freedom of navigation to challenge claims of control made by the Chinese and other parties.
Asean also includes Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
China has reconquered and militarized several disputed atolls in the South China Sea in recent years to shore up claims over most of the region, an element of rising tensions that has led Washington to push back what it sees as a broader pattern of unbridled Chinese economy and military aggression.
China and the United States signed a similar agreement governing meetings at sea and in the air in 2015, but Beijing has often ignored international standards of military confrontation. The United States complained this month that a Chinese warship had approached dangerously and aggressively from a guided missile destroyer of the US Navy while it was in danger. was conducting a patrol for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
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We all know that if there is a physical incident, the name of the game changes.
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Such incidents have also occurred in the air. Last year, the US military announced that two Chinese fighter planes had intercepted a US surveillance aircraft over the East China Sea, between China and Japan, and flew very close. China challenged the account and said that his plane had made a lawful interception.
The air meeting framework agreed with Saturday includes wording prohibiting quick or aggressive approaches in the air and setting out guidelines for clear communications, including suggestions for "refraining from using a non-divine language or hostile physical gestures ".
The signatories of the agreement, who are voluntary and not legally binding, would agree to avoid unprofessional encounters and imprudent maneuvers. It follows an agreement reached in 2014 between more than two dozen countries on guidelines for meeting ships.
Evan Laksmana, senior researcher at Jakarta's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Evan Laksmana, senior researcher at Jakarta's Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Building confidence around crises or military clashes can hardly advance without widely accepted rules of the game," he said.
China asserts that the persistent US military presence in Asia is antagonistic and destabilizing and has sought to strengthen cooperation with the nations of Southeast Asia and to exclude the United States, which has long provided security for the region. . The smaller countries in Southeast Asia are trying to balance the two and plan exercises with both sides.
Chinese air controllers routinely challenge all aircraft traveling near islands recovered in the South China Sea, which Beijing has equipped with radar, radio jamming equipment and landing strips. He unilaterally declared an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea, where China challenges island peculiarities with Japan.
The Chinese Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Ng, from Singapore, said the escalating risk of escalating the incident meant that existing directives governing military activities must evolve. "We all know that if there is a physical incident, the name of the match changes," he said. "It changes the complexion, it creates a cascade of activities that you can not control."
Write to Jake Maxwell Watts at [email protected]
