ASEAN, China ministers to endorse South China Sea code of conduct framework in Manila meet

Foreign Ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China will endorse this week a crucial framework document that will initiate and shape formal negotiations for a regional code of conduct in the disputed South China Sea, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Monday.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Robespierre Bolivar said the document, called the Framework of a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, will be one of the major outcome documents of the week-long ASEAN ministerial meeting that will be hosted by the Philippines - current head of the regional bloc’s rotating chairmanship this year.

The ASEAN ministerial meeting and post-ministerial conference meetings, including the ASEAN regional forum, where US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is likely to attend, will be held on August 2 to 8 in Manila. The ARF – the world’s largest security gathering - will be attended by the 10 ASEAN Foreign Ministers and their counterparts from its 17 regional partners, including the US, Japan, China, Australia, Russia, South Korea, and North Korea.

Bolivar said the framework on the code of conduct will be approved at the ASEAN-China ministerial meeting on Aug. 6.

“It’s about cementing the commitment (for a code of conduct) that’s why it is being endorsed by the ministers. There’s a political will if ministers will endorse it,” Bolivar told a group of reporters in an interview. “It’s a major step forward in actually having a code of conduct.”

After the endorsement of the ministers of ASEAN and China, he said the framework would then be elevated to the leaders, who will note the approval and instruct both sides to take steps toward actual negotiations for a Code of Conduct.

“We expect that the joint working group will begin discussions on the actual code of conduct as soon as the approval of the framework is finished,” Bolivar said.

A regional code of conduct aims to prevent conflicting territorial claims in the vast potentially-oil rich region from erupting into violent confrontations or worse, an economically-devastating major conflict.

The South China Sea is a vital sealane where oil and natural gas have been discovered in several areas. The Philippines refers to parts of the South China Sea as West Philippine Sea.

Finalizing the code has acquired urgency due to series of confrontations between China and its smaller Southeast Asian neighbors with competing claims to the waters, like the Philippines and Vietnam. Other claimants are Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Efforts to finalize the pact have dragged on for years without any sign that such accord will ever be achieved.

In place of a legally-binding code, China and ASEAN, which groups the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, settled for a mere declaration in 2002 that calls on claimants to exercise restraint and stop new occupation in the South China Sea.

However, its non-binding nature and lack of provision to sanction misbehaving claimants, renders the accord useless against aggression.

Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano earlier hinted that the Philippines is open to an accord that is not legally-binding if it will hamper the negotiations for the code.

In July 2016, an international court in The Hague, Netherlands invalidated China’s historical claim over the South China Sea, in a decision that angered Beijing.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who has sought Chinese trade and economic aid, has shelved long-running territorial disputes, including the arbitral tribunal case won by the Philippines.

While ignoring the ruling – an offshoot of a case filed by the Philippines in 2013 - China has beefed up its military presence in contested territories.

China was accused of militarizing the South China Sea after it was reported that it has installed missiles and radars on artificial islands it built on the waters. — RSJ, GMA News