Law of the Sea - South China Sea

In the wake of the Sino-Vietnamese agreement on the South China Sea, India tried to get involved through its state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp which will work with its Vietnamese counterpart PetroVietnam to develop oil and gas in parts of the South China Sea, Japanese FM Koichiro Gemba proposed a multilateral framework to settle maritime disputes in the South China Sea, while the Philippines opposed the China-Vietnam accord and called for a multilateral approach to resolve disputes concerning the South China Sea. A Chinese FM spokesman responded that "the fact that China and Vietnam have agreed to settle maritime disputes through negotiations has nothing to do with a third party" and that multinational talks will not help and may make the issue even more complicated.