Laos wants to see maritime rights respected and avoid a military build-up in the South China Sea, US secretary of state John Kerry said on Monday, after a meeting with Laos’ Prime Minister Thongsing T
Laos wants to see maritime rights respected and avoid a military build-up in the South China Sea, US secretary of state John Kerry said on Monday, after a meeting with Laos’ Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong to urge Asean unity in the face of Chinese claims.
Laos is the 2016 chair of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations and hosts a summit later in the year that will include the leaders of the United States and China. “He was very clear he wants a unified Asean and he wants maritime rights protected, and he wants to avoid militarisation and to avoid conflict,” Mr Kerry told reporters after meeting Mr Thongsing in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
“It is particularly important that Laos finds itself playing a critical role within Asean, and Asean itself is critical to upholding the rules-based system in the Asia-Pacific and ensuring that every country, big and small, has a say in addressing the matters of shared concern,” Mr Kerry said.
“We want everybody to have a voice within the region without regards to size, power and clout.” Mr Kerry heads to Beijing for talks on Wednesday with the leadership there.
A senior US state department official said Mr Kerry would seek to set an encouraging tone in Laos by discussing increased US aid, including more funds for work to dispose of unexploded US ordnance left over from the Vietnam War, when Laos became one of history’s most heavily bombed countries, as the US tried to destroy communist supply lines running through it.
