ASEAN-plus-three to meet on disputed SCS

JAKARTA—Economic cooperation and the disputed South China Sea will be on the agenda when Southeast Asian foreign ministers meet their Chinese, Japanese and South Korean counterparts for ASEAN-plus-three talks on Thursday. China will be represented at the talks by top diplomat Wang Yi instead of Foreign Minister Qin Gang after Qin pulled out for “health reasons,” according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and his South Korean counterpart Park Jin will also attend. The grouping was established after the 1997 Asian financial crisis to develop better economic ties between Southeast Asian nations and East Asian powers.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations members include this year’s chair Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, the Philippines and Myanmar. Experts said the South China Sea will be a priority because China claims almost the entirety of the strategic waterway and several ASEAN members complain about Beijing infringing on their own overlapping territorial claims there. AFP