November 14, 2024
JAKARTA – Prabowo Subianto and United States President Joe Biden on Tuesday underscored their “unwavering support” for upholding freedom of navigation and “respect for sovereign rights and jurisdiction” in their talks on the South China Sea, in a move that appeared to negate a previous statement with China.
The Indonesia-US joint statement, issued after the two leaders’ long-awaited meeting, comes just days after Prabowo concluded a trip to China, where another joint statement was published that raised eyebrows among local and regional diplomatic circles over fears that Indonesia had unwittingly legitimized China’s sweeping claims to the contested waters.
According to that statement with China, both sides had reached a “consensus” on jointly developing areas of “overlapping claims”.
The Foreign Ministry later responded that Indonesia’s position on the issue of the South China Sea remains unchanged.
China has sought to assert dominance in the South China Sea for decades, using a flimsy argument based on old maps that an international court ruled as invalid in 2016.
However, Prabowo and Biden stated that the ruling by the arbitral tribunal was constituted pursuant to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a key treaty that underpins maritime security and governance in contested waters.
“Both leaders underscored their unwavering support for upholding freedom of navigation and overflight, as well as respect for sovereign rights and jurisdiction of coastal states over their exclusive economic zones in accordance with international law of the sea, as reflected in [UNCLOS],” read the joint statement issued on the White House website.
They also expressed support for regional efforts to develop “an effective and substantive Code of Conduct [CoC] in the South China Sea that adheres to international law […] and respects the rights and interests of third parties”.
As a non-claimant state, Indonesia has led regional efforts to maintain peace with China by upholding international norms and maritime law, consistent with UNCLOS, including in drawn out negotiations on the elusive CoC.
Coastal states in Southeast Asia have been wary of engaging with China on joint development efforts in contested waters for fear of legitimizing its claims.
Huge, unexploited oil and gas deposits are believed to lie under the South China Sea’s seabed, though estimates vary greatly.
It is also one of the busiest waterways for global trade, with roughly US$3 trillion passing through every year.