AT the very start of the new year and the new decade on Jan. 1, 2020, the government of Indonesia made a declaration that has profound and far-reaching implications for the festering disputes between China and its Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) neighbors over China’s extravagant claims in the South China Sea.

Indonesia said on Wednesday it rejected China’s claims over a disputed part of the South China Sea as “having no legal basis.” This came after it lodged a protest two days earlier with Beijing over the presence of a Chinese coastguard vessel in its territorial waters.