July 20, 2011 8:42 PM EDT
ASEAN countries and China say that meetings at a recent ASEAN forum resulted in the establishment of more specific guidelines on how to deal with the South China Sea dispute that has mounted over the past few months.
The guidelines spell out how involved parties will abide by a Declaration of Conduct regarding the water space, signed in 2002.
The gesture is a "good start," the Vietnamese delegation's representative Pham Quang Vinh told Voice of America.
And not just for Vietnam and China in their respective roles in the South China Sea conflict, but for the United States, expected to send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to discuss the rising tensions with the involved parties in the coming few weeks.
The U.S.' involvement in the region's dispute over the resource-rich water area has angered Beijing.
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Last week, the Chinese army has announced U.S. intervention in the ongoing dispute over sovereignty of the South China Sea may escalate tensions in the region.
People's Liberation Army chief Chen Bingde called U.S. intervention "inappropriate," according to a report by Bloomberg, and said that the matter should be resolved by "dialogue and diplomatic measures" between the parties involved.
Despite gestures by China and the Southeast Asian nations fighting for the territory to calm disputes over the water space, rich in natural resources, there is some worry that U.S. involvement will frustrate the situation.
Vietnam announced a joint naval drill with the United States, slated for later this month.
Why are China and five Southeast Asian nations including Vietnam and the Philippines fighting over the water space?
It is still unknown just how much natural gas and oil is beneath the South China Sea's seabed.
Some Chinese sources estimate it's over 200 billion barrels, roughly 80 percent of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves, but others say that's an extreme exaggeration.
The benefits may be unclear, but Beijing can calculate how much its mounting face-off with Vietnam over the sea space would cost the Chinese economy.
At face value, the price tag is US $12.7 billion-- the amount of Vietnam's trade deficit with China in 2010, according to Vietnam's General Statistics Office.
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