As ASEAN touts unity, Philippines seeks consensus on South China Sea

Japan Times

27-05-2025

The Philippines has called on ASEAN nations to wrap up negotiations on a code of conduct in the disputed South China Sea, a move experts say reflects Manila's growing frustration with Beijing's attempts to exploit the Southeast Asian bloc's diverging priorities as well its consensus-based model for decision-making.
Speaking at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations' summit in Kuala Lumpur that touted bloc unity, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday underscored the 'urgent need' to accelerate the adoption of a 'legally binding' code to safeguard maritime rights and prevent 'miscalculations at sea.'
Manila's call on the 10-member bloc comes as the situation between China and the Philippines has turned particularly tense, with the resource-rich waters now being the scene of regular ship collisions and rammings, and as the Chinese side repeatedly deploys flares and water cannons.
'Manila has every reason to feel frustrated with ASEAN,' said Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia expert and professor at the U.S. National War College.
China, he said, tends to pick on one country at a time for fear of making the South China Sea a multilateral ASEAN issue.
'Over the past few years, the Philippines has borne the brunt of Chinese aggression, while most other countries have been sitting back, breathing a sigh of relief that they are not being targeted by China,' Abuza added.
ASEAN and Beijing have been working for two decades to conclude a substantive code of conduct based on the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to help lower the risk of confrontation. But the two sides have been at loggerheads mainly due to differences over which maritime areas the code should cover, who should be regarded as an extraregional player and whether the code would be legally binding.
A China Coast Guard ship (left) fires a water cannon at a Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources ship (center) near Sandy Cay reef in the disputed South China Sea in this screen shot from video taken on May 21. |
Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and Philippine Coast Guard / VIA AFP-JIJI
Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said that Manila is targeting 2026 for the code's completion, when it takes over the rotating ASEAN chairmanship from Malaysia. The top Philippine diplomat, who is set to visit Tokyo on Wednesday, also said that Manila is open to more arrangements with Beijing to help maintain peace in the strategic waterway.
But concerns remain.
There have already been calls in the past for an expedited conclusion, none of which have panned out. Experts say that, given the diverging interests within ASEAN — as well as the close ties of Cambodia and Laos to China — the 2026 deadline may not be feasible.
'Outstanding issues appear to be insurmountable at this point,' said Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. 'If there is an acceleration of negotiations to a conclusion, that end agreement is likely to leave key issues insufficiently addressed.'
At the same time, the rising number of flare-ups has drawn growing regional and global attention, making it more difficult for Beijing to follow its preferred approach of solving these disputes bilaterally.
This means that China's preference of dealing with these issues one-on-one makes an ASEAN-led solution seem increasingly unlikely.
Frustrated with the slow progress on the code of conduct, the Philippines has begun turning to individual claimants to push for bilateral or minilateral engagements.
This push has prompted questions about ASEAN's effectiveness in addressing regional flash points, particularly when one of the parties isn't a bloc member.
Philippine coast guard and military personnel hold the country's flag during an inter-agency maritime operation on Sandy Cay in the disputed South China Sea on April 27. |
National Task Force on West Philippine Sea / VIA AFP-JIJI
The latter is important as individual Southeast Asian governments have a strong record of handling disputes on a bilateral basis, albeit not through ASEAN. Vietnam and Indonesia, for instance, recently moved forward on a maritime delimitation agreement.
It's a different story at the ASEAN level. Experts warn that the organization's dialogue mechanisms may not be sufficient to prevent or manage a broader regional crisis involving major powers.
They say that except for some basic principles or issues where agreement is relatively easy — such as promoting economic cooperation — the bloc has difficulty finding formal common cause.
With the exception of Vietnam, most mainland ASEAN members largely avoided the code of conduct issue. Maritime countries, either as claimants or states that use the waterway, have been reluctant to publicly back the Philippines, despite a 2016 international arbitral tribunal ruling invalidating Beijing's claims to most of the disputed waters.
'Not all ASEAN claimant states face the same kind of pressure from China, or have as many of their claimed features occupied,' said Thomas Daniel, of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, noting that this influences national positions and appetites for risk.
Even more of an impediment to cooperation is ASEAN claimant states' history of distrust — many are also involved in disputes with each other, not just with China.
Southeast Asian claimant states 'once believed that using the collective heft of ASEAN to negotiate with Beijing on the South China Sea might yield more favorable outcomes, but that has clearly not played out as intended,' Daniel said.
Instead, China has managed to successfully exploit 'both diverging priorities within ASEAN and the group's consensus-based decision-making to its own advantage,' he added.
Manila's frustration with the latter was voiced earlier this month by Philippine national security adviser Eduardo Ano, who urged ASEAN to be the 'strongest defender' of the concept that 'might does not make right.'
In the region, the demand for consensus has sometimes become an 'instrument for inaction and inertia,' Ano said, warning that the search for an agreement by all has become 'an obstacle to arrive at important and unified mechanisms.'
Over the past few decades, ASEAN has grown diverse in terms of interests, government types and levels of economic development, creating more decision-making challenges, given that any member state also has veto power.
'The Philippines has long recognized that some ASEAN member states are unlikely to offer outright support due to their close economic ties with China,' said Dindo Manhit, president of the Stratbase ADR Institute, one of the Philippines' leading research consultancies.
Manila's growing frustration lies in the 'lack of recognition' that China's aggressive actions in the South China Sea waters closest to the Philippines are not solely its concern, but rather a regional threat that undermines stability and the broader rules-based order, he added.
Still, it's important to note that ASEAN was never intended to be a security-focused bloc.
'ASEAN's inherent limitations must be acknowledged as it was not primarily established to address political and sociocultural issues,' Manhit said, adding that the grouping's core focus remains economic cooperation.
Given these limitations, he added, the Philippines' best course of action would be to pursue partnerships with maritime ASEAN states and like-minded countries — including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight, as well as economic rights within their exclusive economic zones.
Aware of the limitations, Manila has in recent years begun taking matters into its own hands.
It has boosted military spending, deepened defense partnerships with countries like Japan, while also expanding security ties with outside partners such as New Zealand, Canada, India, France and Germany — moves that suggest Manila is not pinning all its hopes on the elusive code-of-conduct agreement.
These actions 'should not be seen as a reaction against any particular nation,' Manhit said, but 'rather as part of its broader strategy to strengthen its security posture and contribute to regional stability.'