How to build a sea of peace and amity

The Special China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting, to be held in Beijing on Aug 29 to mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the China-ASEAN strategic partnership, will focus mainly on deepening of relations between the two sides.

China and some ASEAN member states have been involved in territorial disputes in the South China Sea. To defuse the tensions, however, Foreign Minister Wang Yi has proposed that the parties work out a Code of Conduct and ensure the success of the Beijing meeting on the key documents related to dispute management .

Wang's proposal has four key elements. First, each party should have a realistic expectation from the talks. He said that it would be neither realistic nor serious to talk about a "quick fix (solution)". Since a COC concerns the interests of all the parties, its formulation will be a process of sophisticated and complex coordination.