(VOVworld) – In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa protested China’s viewpoints to defend its illegal deployment of oil-rig Hai Yang 981 within Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf and said that Indonesia would become more involved to help resolve the situation.

ASEAN opposes China’s stance over the situation in the East Sea.

Natalegawa said that China has been trying to settle tensions in the East Sea through bi-lateral talks, but the issue is regional, and the ASEAN had “special responsibility” to ensure that the issue should be resolved through dialogue. He said China’s actions clearly violated the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) to which China had committed.
Interviewed by Nikkei during his participation in the conference “The Future of Asia” in Japan, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the East Sea’s issue was one of the key factors in the Chinese-ASEAN relations as ASEAN benefits from regional stability and China and ASEAN have been discussing the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC), after signing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) in 2002. Lee said that ASEAN would get involved in the East Sea’s situation and would do its utmost to avoid the issue souring ASEAN-China relations.
The Malaysian government expressed its deep concern over recent developments in the East Sea, emphasising the need to quickly establish a Code of Conduct in the East Sea.