China's critism of ASEAN countries' policy

On the road to develpoment with ASEAN
By Zhai Kun (China Daily)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2009-08/21/content_8597615.htm

ASEAN held foreign minister-level meetings in Phuket, Thailand, from July 20 to 23 as a preparatory move for this year's ASEAN+3 and East Asian summit scheduled for Oct 23-25. The event grabbed global attention when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended a concurrent ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in Southeast Asia with ASEAN members. The move is seen as the return of the superpower to the "critically important" region.

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The economic model long advocated by ASEAN members, which has seriously harmed the region's ecology, has put the Mekong River valley's environmental issues under global spotlight.

ASEAN members have clinched a series of TAC agreements with major powers beyond the region, but the group's dilemma over security has grown in recent years. The frenzy that the US, Japan, India and Australia have kicked up by trumpeting their "China military threat" theory has caused unnecessary security concern within the bloc.

The rise in tensions over the South China Sea indicates ASEAN members have a wrong impression about a rising China. Some Southeast Asian scholars have even warned that if the situation in the South China Sea worsened it could damage the mutually beneficial environment between the two sides that took decades to build.

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Meanwhile, there were concerns among ASEAN members regarding USNS Impeccable incident, the appearance of a nuclear submarine base in South China Sea and China's plan to build 7 dams on the upstream of Mekong river.