Can the Philippines seal the deal as ASEAN Chair in 2026?

The South China Sea (SCS) has lengthy been a flashpoint for regional rigidity and nice energy rivalry due to its strategic location as a delivery route, producing an estimated $5.3 trillion value of business items yearly, in addition to its richness in marine life and pure assets.

Sadly, the Philippines is on the heart of a looming geopolitical storm within the SCS attributable to China’s coercive and illegal actions, on prime of the failure of the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to finalize a legally-binding Code of Conduct (COC) over the past a long time. The area has since lived with ceremonial dialogues, diplomatic declarations, and half-baked agreements that put the waters and its assets in the direction of an irreversibly militarized, exploited, and unsustainable path.

For the reason that maritime area is changing into extra turbulent past summary information headlines, there’s now a way of urgency to chase after an implementable framework that truly reduces dangers and protects the rights of coastal states.

For the Philippines, 2026 could lastly be the important thing to vary the narrative and step up its management sport. 

The nation’s ASEAN Chairship subsequent yr, which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. publicly inaugurated on November 14, presents the final word likelihood to set acceptable behavioral requirements on this high-stakes maritime situation and steer the ship to the area’s favor. Subsequently, subsequent yr can not simply turn out to be a symbolic aspiration with out a concrete technique to finish the long-standing authorized debate and reconcile divergent pursuits.

Supported by the authorized readability of the 2016 Arbitral Award and strengthened by rising worldwide help, the Philippines’ renewed sense of optimism have to be geared in the direction of giving its leaders the political vigor to institutionalize significant confidence constructing measures.

Nevertheless, changing expectations into outcomes as a show of actual dedication to finalize the COC will quickly be examined because the world watches with a thousand skeptical questions. Can the Philippines safe each ASEAN and China’s signatures on a binding doc meant to manipulate one of the consequential maritime areas on the earth?  Or will it depend on the identical diplomatic routine of symbolic gestures, and simply let risk actors make sure that nobody writes the foundations on the South China Sea, a lot to the area’s drawback?

How the COC advantages the area 

Allow us to handle these questions by figuring out first how the COC advantages the area. To start out, the COC serves as a safety blanket for the area in opposition to the specter of China’s unlawful and aggressive actions within the South China Sea, together with harassment of navy officers, fisherfolk, and marine scientists. It reduces tensions and minimizes the probability of any escalation, misunderstanding, or miscalculation within the disputed waters. 

The COC additionally builds communication, belief, and confidence amongst international locations. Whereas it isn’t a assure of resolving the territorial disputes immediately, the settlement is a chance to foster good working relations amongst ASEAN member states and China, encouraging them to behave with self-restraint and cooperate in essential areas akin to marine environmental safety, analysis, and search and rescue operations.

The steadiness that comes with having a COC additionally offers important financial beneficial properties for ASEAN member states and the area as an entire, because it helps make sure that essential sea lanes are safe and the circulation of worldwide commerce passing by means of these waters just isn’t disrupted. As well as, the area turns into safer for overseas buyers to speculate and conduct enterprise. 

What hinders the COC’s realization 

All these benefits can solely be achieved as soon as the COC is agreed upon by all events. However even after greater than 20 years because the first ASEAN declaration on the South China Sea was created, no doc has ever been finalized due to a number of challenges.

There are nonetheless ongoing debates on the geographical scope of the COC. For the Philippines and one other claimant, Vietnam, the scope of the COC should embrace all disputed areas within the South China Sea. For China, it should solely embrace the areas the place it doesn’t have full management of, or in different phrases, the options it has but to militarize and occupy.

There may be additionally the problem of figuring out whether or not the COC is binding or not. In fact, it isn’t sudden that China would desire a non-binding doc for flexibility and to realize private beneficial properties and pursuits. China’s unwillingness to just accept and acknowledge the 2016 Arbitral Award ruling alerts this place. 

The inclusion of exterior powers can be being contested. This pertains most significantly to the USA, which is a treaty ally of the Philippines and a strategic rival of China. Whereas the Philippines and different like-minded states profit from US presence within the Indo-Pacific, China doesn’t need any US involvement because it believes that the South China Sea disputes is a regional situation that have to be resolved by states inside the area alone.

One other problem is the institutional flaws of ASEAN as a regional group. Why is ASEAN silent in regards to the unlawful actions perpetrated by China in opposition to the Philippines within the latter’s personal territory? Why is ASEAN silent about the truth that a serious energy is threatening regional safety and stability? Its consensus mannequin of decision-making results in a scarcity of unified place in regional safety issues, particularly conventional safety challenges. Various positions on problems with key significance additionally stem from every ASEAN member state’s relations with the US and China as main powers, which incorporates political leanings and financial dependence, thereby influencing decision-making.

The final problem is the approaching deadline for a COC doc. Is it actually possible for the COC to be finalized subsequent yr? If and when this doc is concluded and each ASEAN and China have reached an understanding, will the COC perform the best way it’s meant to? Or will it’s simply one other doc crammed with commitments and grand statements that may by no means be carried out in actuality? With the need to succeed in the 2026 deadline, it’s potential that the COC turns into a mere doc that falls wanting expectations.

What the Philippines can do 

With all that has been mentioned, we return to the central query: Can the Philippines seal the deal in 2026? In that case, how?

Within the Philippines’ purpose of concluding the COC throughout its ASEAN Chairship, the nation have to be clear about its strategic purpose for the COC. It should prioritize the settlement of points that hinder the completion of the COC by interesting to ASEAN first so the regional group can current a unified voice on the negotiation desk.

The Philippines may develop its strategic communications plan associated to the COC to speak its relevance to varied actors such because the Filipino public, claimant international locations within the South China Sea, like-minded companions, and even international locations past the area. The nation can even profit from persevering with to develop its protection capabilities on maritime area consciousness, cyber protection, and different operational capabilities. 

Lastly, the Philippines ought to interact with China strategically and critically contemplating that China is a co-actor within the conclusion of the COC. Precedence areas of cooperation could embrace financial, environmental, and catastrophe response to generate a more-accepted response from China. The Philippines should additionally fastidiously navigate the complexities of ASEAN member states’ relations with China and make sure that the phrases included within the COC promote regional cooperation quite than additional division. 

Because the Philippines takes the helm of ASEAN in 2026 as Chair, it should due to this fact steer the regional group in the direction of making important progress in realizing a rules-based and actionable code of conduct to successfully navigate relations within the South China Sea and at last obtain the regional stability it has lengthy aspired for. – Rappler.com

Sabrina Carlos, Christine Castillo, and Alexia Anne Sunaz are inaugural fellows of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Philippines’ Girls in Safety Programme.