The 2002 Asean-China statement calls on signatories to avoid occupying disputed islands, inform others of military exercises and resolve territorial disputes peacefully. In addition to the guidelines to implement that declaration, Asean ministers are seeking a legally binding code of conduct with China, they said in a July 19 statement.
“Unless the code of conduct is a treaty, there will be no difference except it will be new words,” said Carlyle Thayer, a politics professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra. “Asean shies away from enforcement. What they would put into a code of conduct that would make it more binding is a statement specifying which body can resolve disputes that arise between signatories.”"
“The necessary elements to make the guidelines succeed are still incomplete,” Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert F. del Rosario told reporters late yesterday in Bali, where he is attending a regional security forum. The failure to deal with competing territorial claims in the waters means “the problem hasn’t gone away,” he said.
The Philippines and Vietnam have pushed Asean to formalize a set of rules to avoid clashes with China, which claims most of the South China Sea as its own. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who angered China last year by declaring a national interest in the waters, arrives in Bali later today after urging India to play a greater role in policing Asia-Pacific waterways.
The U.S. has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines and has boosted military relations with Vietnam. Both countries reject China’s map of the South China Sea as a basis for joint development of oil and gas resources and have pushed ahead with exploration work, prompting Chinese patrol ships to disrupt those activities in the past few months.
