Before and during the 30th summit of the Asean last Saturday, pressures were aplenty. The objective: To include in or exclude from both the Chairman’s statement and the Summit Declaration statements taking China to task for its actions in the South China Sea.
The Chinese Embassy in Manila reportedly wanted the phrase “full respect for legal and diplomatic processes” removed from the final summit statement, seeing it as a reference to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling last July invalidating China’s “nine-dash” line claim to most of the South China Sea.
As of Saturday, the draft statement had removed the phrase out of the South China Sea portion, and replaced it with “the supremacy of the law”. President Duterte, 2017 Asean chairman, also used the latter phrase in his address opening the summit.
On the other side of the geopolitical fence, former Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert I. del Rosario, whose ADR Institute held a forum on the South China Sea days before the summit, deplored Duterte’s refusal to include the PCA ruling in the Asean statement.
“The draft of the Chairman’s Statement is deeply disappointing and, if not revisited, would manifest an absence of the desired leadership,” said del Rosario, who spearheaded the Philippines’s anti-China, pro-American stance under then-President Benigno S. Aquino III.
Dr. Ha Anh Tuan, director for policy analysis of the Institute of South China Sea Studies of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, also wanted the PCA decision cited. “The spirit and decisions of the ruling will certainly be a legal reference for future negotiation and cooperation in the South China Sea,” he stressed. “The Arbitral ruling is final and binding for China and the Philippines. So it will still be there whether the Asean Summit refers to it or not.”
Duterte dismissed such prodding: “Nobody tells me what to do or what to say.” On the PCA ruling, he argued: “China said [it’s] completely ignoring the arbitral. So what more can you ask of it? Make noise? For what?…. Stop dreaming about arbitral, arbitral. You cannot…. Unless we are prepared to go to war.”
Four other Asean members reportedly wanted the phrase “land reclamation and militarization” included in the summit document, as it was in last year’s Laos statement. And Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged in an interview before the summit that Asean should speedily resolve South China Sea issues.
As always, compromise won. The statement included high up in Paragraph 7 the language China opposed about “legal and diplomatic processes”, and explicitly cited the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the PCA ruling affirmed in denying Beijing’s nine-dash line claim:
“We reaffirmed the shared commitment to maintaining and promoting peace, security and stability in the region, as well as to the peaceful resolution of disputes, including full respect for legal and diplomatic processes, without resorting to the threat or use of force, in accordance with the universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”
But the South China Sea section (Paragraphs 120-121) dropped “land reclamation and militarization”, saying in the first paragraph: “We took note of concerns expressed by some leaders over recent developments in the area. We reaffirmed the importance of the need to enhance mutual trust and confidence, exercising self-restraint in the conduct of activities and avoiding actions that may further complicate the situation, and pursuing the peaceful resolution of disputes, without resorting to the threat or use of force.”
The next paragraph added: “We took note of the improving cooperation between Asean and China,” possibly referring to the Beijing visits by Duterte and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak last year.
Paragraph 121 also affirmed the push for a binding code to replace the 2002 Declaration on disputed maritime areas: “We welcomed the progress to complete a framework of the Code of Conduct [COC] in the South China Sea by middle of this year, in order to facilitate the early conclusion of an effective COC.”
So who wins and who loses in all this?
Clearly, China got its wish to remove references to reclamation and militarization, and move “legal and diplomatic processes” out of the South China Sea portion, even though the phrase jumped higher to Paragraph 7.
Asean, too, gains in keeping amicable ties with Beijing at a time when Chinese trade, aid and investment may be needed to offset a possible falloff from the West, especially with America possibly turning protectionist under President Donald J. Trump. Plus: An amicable Asean makes Beijing more likely to conclude and comply with the COC.
And the loser? Certain quarters want Asean to pressure Beijing with Washington’s help. It didn’t stop China during Aquino’s time, and it won’t happen in Duterte’s.