BALI: Increasing and sometimes violent encounters between China and its neighbors with competing claims in the South China Sea are driving up shipping costs and risk getting "out of control," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned on Sunday, underscoring the urgency of peacefully resolving disputes over resources and territory in the strategic waters.
Speaking in Bali, Indonesia, where China and the Association of Southeast Asian nations took a first step toward establishing a binding code of conduct for the South China Sea last week, Clinton said that dangerous incidents were on the rise.