The Manila Times
A FILIPINO political scientist and security analyst said efforts to finalize a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea continued to face significant hurdles, despite intensified negotiations led by the Philippines during its Asean chairmanship. Speaking at a forum organized by Manila-based think tank Asian Center for Peace and Security Studies Inc. (ACPSSI) over the weekend, Rommel Banlaoi said negotiators had been holding almost monthly meetings across the region — including in Cebu, Singapore and Bangkok — in a bid to produce a draft COC for possible approval during the Asean leaders summit later this year. “They are discussing heavily the legal character of the COC — whether it is binding or non-binding — the geographic scope, the activities to be covered, and most importantly, the dispute settlement mechanism,” Banlaoi said. Despite the accelerated pace, he said he was “not very optimistic anymore about the conclusion of the COC because I see real obstacles,” among them competing national interests among Asean member states. Banlaoi said that as this year’s Asean chairman, the Philippines had been trying to broker a consensus among countries with “colliding national interests,” while working with fellow Asean members Singapore and Malaysia under the troika mechanism to push negotiations forward. Even if an agreement were reached, he said it might fall short of expectations. “If there will be any conclusion at all, it may be a middle ground,” Banlaoi said. But even a “soft” or less binding arrangement could still be an important step toward maintaining peace in the disputed waterway. He noted that while there was mutual interest among claimant states, particularly the Philippines and China, to pursue cooperation, legal and political constraints remained substantial. Under Philippine law, Banlaoi said, there was no explicit framework for “joint development,” only for joint ventures structured through contracts that could imply recognition of Philippine sovereignty — a condition Beijing has been reluctant to accept. “The devil is always in the details,” he said. Banlaoi said domestic political pressures in both countries, along with the influence of external powers, could further complicate the quest for an agreement. “At the end of the day, the success of any agreement will boil down to domestic politics,” he said. “Remove domestic political factors and external pressures, and the Philippines and China can develop natural gas and oil. But the reality on the ground is different.” He said Manila needs to take decisive steps to manage both internal opposition and external geopolitical pressures if it hoped to push negotiations forward. The Philippines has been aiming for a draft COC within its Asean chairmanship. ACPSSI President Herman Tiu Laurel blamed obstacles to the negotiations in part to policy positions taken by then foreign secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. Laurel said Locsin had insisted on a non-negotiable condition that any COC must involve third-party powers such as the United States. Laurel said Locsin’s view was not shared by the majority of Asean members and China, which prefer limiting the involvement of external actors. Tiu Laurel said recent shifts toward a more independent foreign policy, reinforced by a “white paper” issued by retired Philippine ambassadors calling for “balanced diplomacy” and non-alignment, could accelerate the pace of negotiations.
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