A meeting in Malaysia of defense ministers from Southeast Asian countries, the United States and China failed to even issue a joint statement after diplomats from countries in the region said Beijing had lobbied for the omission of even a factual statement about the South China Sea in the declaration, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed diplomats. The issue proved the most contentious at the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the diplomats said, with both the Philippines and Vietnam among the Asian countries unwilling to sign the declaration if it had no mention of the South China Sea, which China claims near-total sovereignty over.