Obama urges easing of Asian tensions

Barack Obama, the US president, has called on China, Japan and other Asian nations to show restraint as a series of simmering maritime disputes threatens to upset peace and stability in the region.

Tensions in the South and East China Seas have escalated in the past two years as an increasingly assertive Beijing has clashed with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam over waters that encompass vast oil and gas reserves, large fish stocks and key global trade routes.

“President Obama’s message is there needs to be a reduction of the tensions in the East China Sea and a process going forward, more broadly, to ensure that these types of disputes don’t risk escalation,” said Ben Rhodes, a US deputy national security adviser. Speaking after the East Asia Summit, a meeting of regional leaders, on Tuesday in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, he added that while the US was not a claimant, it had “significant interest there given its role in the global economy”.

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Article courtesy of Money Control.