It is unlikely that the decision by The Hague on the Philippines case will settle all of these matters. That said, one can envision a path forward, beginning with an immediate freeze on all activities in the disputed territories. That would lower tensions, allowing everyone to take a deep breath.

Connectivity is a shared interest for China and Southeast Asia, and the Maritime Silk Road represents part of the continuing efforts to highlight this. Southeast Asia is important for China’s neighborhood and periphery diplomacy; hence the management or resolution of regional concerns represents a continuing challenge for Chinese foreign policy.

In an article entitled The South China Sea Arbitration (The Philippines v. China): Assessment of the Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility recently published

On Tuesday, senior ASEAN diplomats gathered in Yunnan for a special foreign ministers' meeting with their Chinese counterparts. The idea came from ASEAN countries, the turnout was impressive, and the retreat was deemed "timely and important". Amidst media speculation that the discussion pitted ASEAN against China, it will be useful to take a step back and examine the larger picture.

Divergence and competition between the two major players has intensified as both economies and their business communities want to seize the initiative in developing a more profound and mutually beneficial economic relationship with ASEAN. But there is still room for win-win-win results in this tri-cornered interaction.

With its thriving economy, accelerating integration and evolving challenges to the security environment, ASEAN is destined to become an increasingly important region of the world. Its population is bigger than the combined population of the U.S. and Japan, and it represents a major frontier market.

For Southeast and East Asia to have a favorable architecture, wherein all nations could aspire to common development and prosperity, it is necessary for both the U.S. and China to work closely with each other and with ASEAN.

Washington’s move to politicize this meeting simply reflects the growing frustration of a US that doesn’t know how to deal with China. This time it has taken a wrong approach to confront China at the wrong occasion. The result was not helpful in improving relations among the countries concerned.

Since the first China-Asean official dialogue in July 1991, when then foreign minister Qian Qichen attended the 24th Asean Post-Ministerial Conference as a consultative partner, the relationship between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has grown into a multilayered web of ties.

Beyond search-and-rescue cooperation and crisis management, creating hotlines between China and the 10 ASEAN countries would carry a no less important symbolism: the consensus that the South China Sea issue is not an issue between them as a whole.