South China Sea hopes on rise

Beijing hopes for early adoption of a code of conduct in the South China Sea on the basis of consensus, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a daily news conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

He was commenting on a release from the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat in Boracay, the Philippines, on Tuesday, that called for efforts to complete an ASEAN-China framework for a code of conduct to facilitate the early adoption of the agreement.

Geng said China hopes to work with ASEAN countries to advance negotiations over the code and finish drafting a framework before the middle of the year.