BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei – Foreign ministers from the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc continued their annual meeting in Brunei on Monday (July 1st), focusing on what many in the region view as China's increasingly provocative actions to stake claims to most of the South China Sea, AFP reported.

ASEAN has been trying for years to get China to agree to a legally binding code of conduct that would govern actions in the strategically important sea.

Despite Beijing's opposition, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said ASEAN would continue to press its case in Brunei, telling reporters Saturday, "We will be really zeroing in on the need for the code of conduct."

Also on Saturday, Marty met behind closed doors with his counterparts from Singapore and Malaysia, reportedly to discuss the thick smog and dangerous haze that recently blanketed Singapore and parts of Malaysia. The smog will likely be a key issue at the larger ASEAN gathering, with Indonesia under pressure to stop the setting of fires as a means of land-clearing on Sumatra.