Filipino Albert del Rosario a lone Asean voice taking on China

Placing consensus above all, it is fair to say that Asean leaders are generally not known for their displays of emotion or passion.

Yet, in a crucial closed-door meeting in July, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario tried to tap those dormant qualities as he tried to rally his peers to stand up to China over the South China Sea.

Trying, in the words of one observer, "to bloody well wake them up", del Rosario quoted the famous lines from German theologian Martin Niemöller of the perils of doing nothing in the face of mounting tyranny. Describing how the Nazis, unopposed, first came for the communists and then the trade unionists, Niemöller said: "Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no-one left to speak out for me."

Rarely has the Association of Southeast Asian Nations heard such language within its staterooms. "It was classic del Rosario," said one Asean envoy. "He's not afraid to appeal to our better selves … and he's not afraid to stand up and be counted when it comes to the South China Sea."

That meeting ended in unprecedented rancour as the 10 Southeast Asian foreign ministers failed to produce an annual communique for the first time in the grouping's 45-year history. Meeting host Cambodia stood accused of doing Beijing's bidding in shutting down debate over how to capture in the document regional concern over the South China Sea.

When Asean leaders met in Phnom Penh last month, Philippine President Benigno Aquino continued his foreign secretary's theme. While he contradicted Cambodia's public claims of an Asean deal - hailed by Beijing - not to "internationalise" the South China Sea dispute, he told his peers to stand united, according to one meeting transcript.