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https://scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3166421/south-china-sea-china-asean-code-conduct-unlikely-end-year
This Week in Asia/ Politics

South China Sea: China-Asean code of conduct unlikely by end of the year, experts say

  • A Chinese military adviser had earlier said that Beijing and Asean countries could not agree on several contentious issues, including the role of other powers
  • The US, Japan, Australia and British navies have increased their presence in the Indo-Pacific region
A Chinese ship carries out a live-fire drill. Photo: Weibo

The China-Asean code of conduct for the disputed South China Sea is unlikely to be concluded by the end of this year, according to a panel of Southeast Asian experts at a forum on Wednesday.

Their comments follow remarks from a Chinese military adviser in late December who said that China and Asean remained divided on a number of contentious issues. These, said Yao Yunzhu, a retired People’s Liberation Army major general, included whether the agreement should be legally binding, its geographic and maritime activities scope and the role of extra-regional powers.

Hoo Tiang Boon, associate professor and coordinator of the China programme at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies said that substantive progress on the code aimed at managing tensions in the South China Sea is unlikely even by the end of 2023.

While some might hold Cambodia, this year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and even the ongoing pandemic responsible for the lack of progress, Hoo said that many questions remain unanswered.

“[For example], what is going to be the enforcement mechanism … and the dispute resolution mechanism? What if parties are perceived as breaking the code, what happens next? These are inconvenient questions that I don’t think have been addressed as a whole in the discussions,” Hoo noted.

It is better not to have any code at all than to have a bad code Hoo Tiang Boon

“It is better not to have any code at all than to have a bad code,” Hoo said, adding that the latter could end up constraining the options of Southeast Asian countries. Hoo added that a “free for all” situation might occur if any one of the parties violated the code.

“One view is that [China] is trying to buy time [and] to have protracted negotiations while trying to change facts on the ground,” Hoo said, referring to Beijing’s efforts in militarising the disputed waterways.

From Singapore’s point of view, so long as there are no major incidents or accidental collisions that may lead to a military crisis, “all is good, at least for now,” Hoo added.

Hoo was one of three panellists speaking at a webinar titled China Watching: The View from Southeast Asia, a pacific dialogue series co-sponsored by the Walsh School of Foreign Service Asian Studies programme at Georgetown University and the university’s Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues.

Bich T. Tran, an adjunct non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Southeast Asia programme said it might be better not to have a code at all, especially if it is based “on China’s terms”.

Renato Cruz De Castro, a distinguished international studies professor in Manila’s De La Salle University said that a fait accompli is China’s key motive in militarising and building islands in the South China Sea.

“China will say let’s freeze the situation [as] we already have those islands there, we have already transformed the South China Sea into the lake of the People Liberation Army’s navy,” said Cruz De Castro, adding that another Chinese motive plan is to keep the United States and Japan “out of the equation”.

Filipinos protest against China’s actions in the South China Sea at a rally in front of the Chinese Consulate in Makati city, Philippines. Photo: AP
Filipinos protest against China’s actions in the South China Sea at a rally in front of the Chinese Consulate in Makati city, Philippines. Photo: AP

While the Philippines welcomes the presence of the United States, Australian, British and Japanese navies in the region, Cruz De Castro said this would “ruin Chinese plans or conditions for the code of conduct”.

“Do we want a code that [is seen as] supporting Asean’s game, Asean’s gambit, [which is] that we will have all the powers coming into the equation and balancing each other? Or a code which will ensure at the end of the day, we will only have one customer, and that is, China?” Cruz De Castro added.

Last November, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China hoped to speed up negotiations regarding the code of conduct in the South China Sea, where the overlapping claims of mainland China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have remained unresolved for decades.

While a draft of the code was issued in 2018, little progress has been made as both sides are unable to find common ground or a mechanism to ensure the code is effectively implemented.

Southeast Asian countries have maintained that China’s vast nine-dash line claim contravenes their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), to which Beijing is a party.

In August, China and the 10-member bloc announced agreement on the preface for the code, eight months after they resumed negotiations in January. Discussions on the second reading of the draft have been ongoing via video link.

As Asean chair in 2022, Cambodia has pledged to undertake efforts to complete the code by year end, but many have expressed doubts, given the country’s heavy reliance on China for investments, trade, infrastructure, and even militarily.