Southeast Asian defense chiefs discuss regional security with the United States, China and other partner countries

VIENTIANE – Southeast Asian defense chiefs met with China, the United States and other partner nations in Laos on Thursday for security talks that come as Beijing becomes increasingly assertive in its claims over much of the South China Sea leading to greater number of confrontations.

The closed-door talks put U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun in the same room, a day after Dong rejected a request to meet Austin one-on-one on the sidelines of ASEAN defense ministers’ meetings.

The United States and China are working to improve faulty military-to-military communications, and Austin expressed regret over Dong’s decision, calling it a “setback for the entire region.”

The ASEAN meetings come at a time when member states are viewing the current changes in the US administration with caution intensification of maritime disputes with China. The United States has strongly pushed a “free and open Indo-Pacific” policy under outgoing President Joe Biden, and it is not yet clear how President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration will handle the situation in the South China Sea.

In addition to the United States and China, other countries outside Southeast Asia, such as Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, are also participating in the ASEAN meeting.

Meetings with ASEAN dialogue partners were also expected tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Russian-Ukrainian warAND wars in the Middle East.

Before leaving for Laos, Austin completed meetings in Australia with officials there and the Japanese defense minister. They pledged support to ASEAN and expressed “grave concern about destabilizing activities in the East and South China Seas, including the dangerous conduct of the People’s Republic of China against the Philippines and other coastal state vessels.”

Along with the Philippines, ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims against China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims it is almost entirely its own territory.

Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos are the other members of ASEAN.

As China has become more assertive in pressing its territorial claims in recent years, China and ASEAN are negotiating a code of conduct to govern maritime behavior, but progress has been slow.

Officials have agreed to try to complete the code by 2026, but talks are hampered by sensitive issues, including disagreements over whether the pact should remain in force.

Chinese and Philippine ships have clashed repeatedly this year, and in October Vietnam accused Chinese forces of attacking fishermen in disputed areas of the South China Sea. China has also sent patrol ships to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia consider their exclusive economic zones.

Another sensitive regional issue is the civil war and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, an ASEAN member. The group’s credibility has been severely tested by the war in Burma, where the army overthrew the elected government in 2021 and fighting continues: pro-democracy guerrillas and ethnic rebels.

Over a year since an offensive initiated by three militias and joined by other resistance groups, observers estimate that less than half of the country is in military control.

Myanmar’s military rulers have been banned from ASEAN meetings since the end of 2021, but this year the country was represented by high-level bureaucrats, including at the October summit.

Zaw Naing Win, director of the Department of International Affairs at the Ministry of Defense, represents the country at defense meetings.

Wednesday’s meetings also discussed military cooperation, transnational fog, disinformation, border security and international crimes such as drugs, cybercrime and human trafficking, said Thai Defense Ministry spokesman Thanathip Sawangsang.