Singapore’s prime minister says a South China Sea code of conduct will take time

MELBOURNE, Australia — Southeast Asian countries’ quest to reach agreement with China on a code of conduct in the contested South China Sea will take time, with difficult issues yet to be resolved despite recent efforts to accelerate the process, Singapore’s prime minister said Tuesday at a regional summit.

China’s increasing military assertiveness in the busy waterway toward neighbors with competing territorial claims has been high on the agenda of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. The three-day summit, which is being hosted in Melbourne to mark 50 years since Australia became ASEAN’s first external partner, ends Wednesday.

Leaders of the 10-nation bloc hope a code of conduct with China would be key to reducing the risk of naval confrontations.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said a first draft of the code had been written but negotiations are still required.

“The issues are not easy to resolve and, really, negotiating of a code of conduct inevitably raises issues of what the ultimate outcomes are going to be, and therefore, because the ultimate answers are difficult, so too negotiating the code will take quite some time,” Lee told reporters said.

In the latest dangerous incident, Chinese coast guard ships blocked Philippine vessels off a disputed South China Sea shoal on Tuesday, causing a minor collision, the Philippine coast guard said.

Philippine security officials have accused the Chinese coast guard and suspected militia ships of blocking Philippine vessels and using water cannons and a military-grade laser that temporarily blinded some Filipino crewmen in a series of high-seas hostilities last year.