JAKARTA -- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China are aiming to conduct an exercise on a security hotline this year in an effort to prevent an accidental collision from escalating tensions in disputed South China Sea, the bloc said on Friday after a meeting with officials from Beijing.
"What is important is incident management [in the South China Sea]," Sidharto Suryodipuro, director general of ASEAN at Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters. "What we can do this year is an exercise about a hotline."
