MALAYSIAS chairmanship of Asean sees the kicking off of the 48th Asean Ministerial Meeting (AMM) and several other related meetings at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur this week. The six-day event started with the meeting of the regional bodys permanent representatives and will include the Asean Post Ministerial Conference, the 16th Asean Plus Three Foreign Ministers Meeting (16th APT FMM), the 5th East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers Meeting (5th EAS FMM) and the 22nd Asean Regional Forum (22nd ARF). Expected to attend is United States Secretary of State John Kerry, who will be involved in a series of meetings with 27 countries. The emphasis of the Asean ministerial meetings will be the Asean Economic Community 2015 (AEC2015) and the Asean post-2015 Vision. This does not, however, exclude other urgent matters, such as the South China Sea dispute over the Spratly Islands with China, a country close to some members of Asean, where China has been aggressively expanding its territory through land reclamation activities.
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