ASEAN/Indonesia backs Code of Conduct for South China Sea

The East Asian island state is chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) this year and wants to use its opportunity to at least agree a code of conduct with China for the highly controversial South China Sea. The guidelines for a Code of Conduct (CoC) drawn up by Indonesia were adopted by the Director of the Office of the Central Committee for Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Communist Party in Jakarta in mid-July. The ten Asean countries and China now aim to finalise the CoC negotiations within three years. It is the first multilateral attempt to resolve the escalating dispute in the South China Sea. The Code of Conduct is intended to harmonise national standards, principles and rules with international law, in particular the Unclos Convention on the Law of the Sea, and ensure a stable, safe and peaceful South China Sea. Time is of the essence: China had recently surprised some of the Asean states by publishing a "revised" national map that unilaterally identifies almost the entire South China Sea as Chinese territory, even though the internationally recognised exclusive economic zones of these countries make up the majority of this area. Bilateral commitments between individual members of the Asean bloc are now also gaining traction in order to pool the interests of the small states vis-à-vis China. This was most recently the case in May between the Philippines and Vietnam, which want to specifically strengthen their maritime cooperation.

Source: The Maritime Executive, Spiegel Online