Obama Attends East Asia Summit Amid Sea Feud

China at center of multiple territorial disputes
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 20, 2012 7:05 AM CST
Obama Attends East Asia Summit Amid Sea Feud
President Obama meets with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, right, during the East Asia Summit at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Obama is in Cambodia today, meeting with East Asian leaders amid a contentious territorial dispute over the South China Sea. Speaking publicly, neither Obama nor Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao responded to reporters' shouted questions about the tensions, the BBC reports. Instead, Obama referred to a "cooperative and constructive approach" to relations between the US and China, though he cited a need for "clear rules of the road" on trade.

But the summit (which joins the 10 ASEAN countries with eight other nations, including China and the US) was expected to focus on the territorial issues. To wit, the AP reports that behind closed doors, the Chinese and Philippine leaders pressed their territorial claims while others called for restraint. Those two countries, along with Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei, all have claims to a portion of the South China Sea, while China and Japan disagree over control of islands in the East China Sea. Trade talks between the East Asian countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand, were expected to be another focus of the summit. (More China stories.)

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