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ASEAN, China make progress on COC talks
On guard: A Filipino soldier patrols at the shore of Pagasa Island (Thitu Island) in the Spratly group of islands in the South China Sea, west of Palawan, the Philippines, in May 2015
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span class="inline inline-center">On guard: A Filipino soldier patrols at the shore of Pagasa Island (Thitu Island) in the Spratly group of islands in the South China Sea, west of Palawan, the Philippines, in May 2015.(Reuters/Ritchie B. Tongo)
Southeast Asian diplomats revealed this week that ASEAN and China have made significant progress in talks on a document of provisions aiming to prevent conflict in the disputed South China Sea.
China claims almost the entire disputed waterway, through which about US$5 trillion in sea-borne goods pass every year; while five ASEAN member countries — Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam —have competing claims.
Philippine Acting Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo said on Tuesday that ASEAN and China were more than halfway through negotiations on a framework of the document called the Code of Conduct (COC). “We have made good progress on coming up with a framework for a Code of Conduct with China,” Manalo told reporters in Manila as quoted by Reuters.
“From a scale of 1 to 10, we are at the upper level. Remember, we were starting from zero in January. There have been a number of elements agreed and we would definitely have a framework on which to embark a serious negotiation on a code of conduct.”
Negotiators from China and ASEAN previously met in Bali in February and again in Cambodia last week in an effort to come up with a final draft of the instrument, which could be approved ahead of the August meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Manila.
Chandra Widya Yuda, a negotiator from Indonesia said there were plans to implement practical cooperation from a 2002 preliminary document (DOC) aimed at promoting confidence-building measures, while consultations on the COC continued in the background.
Indonesia is a non-claimant in the regional dispute, but has a direct interest in maintaining peace and security along the vital trade route.
China is set to host the follow-up ad hoc technical cooperation meeting in Guiyang later in May, he added.
The Habibie Center’s resident ASEAN affairs researcher, Ibrahim Almuttaqi, said the agreement on technical cooperation may prove to be a win-win situation for both sides, with ASEAN giving the impression its initiative “still has legs amidst question marks over the effectiveness of the regional organization to resolve the issue of the South China Sea”.
“It may however be a somewhat hollow win for ASEAN, that is largely symbolic and is far from the early conclusion of a COC that it had consistently been calling for,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
The finalization of the COC has eluded the Southeast Asian bloc of nations for the better part of four years, as ASEAN and China continually struck down each other’s draft proposals for a lasting agreement.
But members of the regional grouping are buoyed by the promise of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who in addition to announcing the first negotiated draft resulting from the Bali talks, had promised an early conclusion of the COC by the middle of this year.
Jose AM Tavares, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s director general for ASEAN affairs, said this was a solid basis for the upcoming negotiations, pointing out that Wang Yi “has made a promise to the international community”
“We’ll hold him to his word,” he told the Post on Monday.
This development comes ahead of a series of crucial events in the region, including the visit of United States Vice President Mike Pence to Indonesia later this month.
The Philippines’ Manalo also said Manila would hold talks with Beijing next month to tackle “issues of concern regarding the South China Sea,” including China’s militarization of several manmade islands in the Spratly Islands.
The US, in addition to the Philippines and Vietnam, have protested against China’s militarization of maritime features in the South China Sea.
Washington has also served as a force that maintains the status quo in the region, but the rise of the inward-looking Donald Trump administration has cast a shadow of doubt about the US’ role in the Asia-Pacific region.
US President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to discuss Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea when they meet on Thursday and Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
