Obama: No need to escalate sea dispute

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Nov 21): Obama: No need to escalate sea dispute

As the show of unity within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations appeared to crumble, US President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Asian leaders to rein in tensions, saying there was no reason to risk an escalation of their territorial disputes. Speaking at the 21st Asean Summit, Obama stopped short of firmly backing allies Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in their disputes with China over a cluster of isles historically called the South China Sea and which Manila refers to as the West Philippine Sea. “President Obama’s message is there needs to be a reduction of the tensions,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said after the summit in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. “There is no reason to risk any potential escalation, particularly when you have two of the world’s largest economies—China and Japan—associated with some of those disputes.” Obama’s message came at the end of a three-day trip to Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and Cambodia in a visit that underlined the expansion of US military and economic interests in Asia under last year’s so-called “pivot” from conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan.....

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/310236/obama-no-need-to-escalate-sea-dispute