Negotiations on South China Sea code of conduct unlikely to finish this 2026 - analyst

MANDAUE CITY, Cebu, February 15 ------ It is unlikely that the parties negotiating the code of conduct (COC) on the South China Sea could conclude the talks this year, an international relations analyst said, saying there were still roadblocks that need to be addressed among parties.

ASEAN spokesperson Dax Imperial told reporters on Tuesday night that “all parties are bent” on concluding the negotiations under the Philippines chairship of ASEAN, as the country supports more meetings regarding this. But Prof. Renato de Castro of De La Salle University told ABS-CBN News there were “a lot of obstacles” to the proposed COC. He also pointed out that the parties have yet to even come up with a draft. “May issue diyan on scope. Saan ba ‘yung scope ng code of conduct? Mayroon diyan isang member-state na gustong kasama ang Paracels. It is because of its history. Tayo hanggang Spratlys lang,” De Castro said in a phone interview. “May isa pang issue sa code of conduct, whether it should be binding or non-binding. Ang gusto ng China, non-bonding, voluntary... So kung pupunta tayo sa position na non-binding, what’s the point ng code of conduct kung wala tayong binding agreement,” the analyst added.

Aside from this, the analyst also pointed out China’s position regarding the COC. “More military exercises and even security alliances should be consulted sa ASEAN and China. So pag magkakaroon ng security exercises sa Balikatan, they would need to inform China and of course other ASEAN member states,” he said, which the ASEAN member states do not want.

Another challenge on ironing out the COC is if this would be based on international law or the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 2016 Arbitral Award. Given all these, De Castro said he is not convinced that a breakthrough would happen under the Philippines’ chairship of ASEAN. He also pointed out that the recent Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea shows an “element of bad faith. “Unfortunately yung harassment – nanggagaling sa mga Chinese. Dahil mayroon silang capability, sila ang may intention. Ang intention ng China is to control almost 90 percent ng South China Sea. At the end of the day, the code of conduct does not really address the root cause of the tension, which is of course the Chinese effort to control… the South China Sea on the basis of the 10-dash line,” he said.

The code of conduct was envisioned to upgrade the ASEAN and China's 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea by having a pact to manage tensions in the waters where different parties have separate claims. ASEAN and China completed the first reading of the proposed code between 2018 and 2019. It had been planned that the code would be mapped out by 2021, but the pandemic hindered negotiations among parties.

Source: news.abs-cbn.com