China and Southeast Asian nations agreed to create a telephone hotline as a fresh step to help avoid accidental military clashes in the South China Sea.
Wednesday’s relatively minor achievement, however, only underscored the continuing difficulty in resolving the competing territorial claims in the area, which has some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
The accord, formally reached at an annual gathering including leaders from Asia and the U.S., didn’t touch on an international arbitration ruling at The Hague in July that rejected Beijing’s claims to historic and economic rights in the disputed sea. China has said it doesn’t recognize the arbitration case, which was first filed by the Philippines in 2013.
