ASEAN fires warning shot across China\\\'s bows

NAYPYIDAW, May 12 (agencies): Southeast Asian leaders have expressed "serious concern" over worsening territorial disputes in the South China Sea, presenting a rare united front against an increasingly assertive Beijing.
Vietnam and the Philippines led a successful push for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to deliver a thinly veiled rebuke to China over the standoff in waters home to key shipping lanes and thought to contain huge energy reserves.
But a defiant Beijing said Hanoi's efforts to enlist the support of its neighbours in the row were "doomed to fail".
The 10-nation ASEAN, in a statement released on Monday after a summit on Sunday, called for a peaceful resolution to the maritime rows, which flared up this month after China moved an oil drilling rig into waters also claimed by Hanoi.
"We expressed serious concerns over the ongoing developments in the South China Sea," said the joint statement from the summit in Myanmar, without explicitly pointing the finger at Beijing.
ASEAN called on all parties involved to "exercise self-restraint, not to resort to threat(s) or use of force, and to resolve disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law".
Observers said the statement marked a change of tone by the regional bloc, many of whose members-including Myanmar-have close economic and political ties with China and have traditionally avoided confrontation with the Asian heavyweight.
In 2012 China's ally Cambodia caused consternation when it was ASEAN head by refusing to take Beijing to task over its assertive maritime stance.
"This is a far cry from when Cambodia was ASEAN chair," said Southeast Asia expert Carl Thayer, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia.