Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily news conference on Wednesday that "stand-alone countries attempted to hype the South China Sea issue during this meeting, yet the majority of the ASEAN countries did not agree".

Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said the US and the Philippines have long attempted to persuade ASEAN to support their unilateral claims or positions, a move "not serving the interests of most ASEAN members".

The statement on Tuesday indicates that "most ASEAN members are not willing to take sides between major countries", Ruan said.

The alignment between Manila and Washington on the South China Sea issue will "undermine the central role ASEAN plays in boosting regional integration and growth and diminish solidarity within ASEAN", Ruan added.

Xu Liping, a senior research fellow on Southeast Asia studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the Philippines "knows well that their top priority is economic growth, and China is a source of their tangible benefits".

Chen Weihua in Washington, DC, contributed to this story.

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