APD REVIEW | COC Framework: Promising Whisper among China and ASEAN Bros

By APD writer Wang Peng

Great changes occurred within one year: from confronting each other with daggers in the Hague International Court of Arbitration on July 12 last year, to a constructive and non-confrontational dialogue in the sunny and warm city, Guiyang, South China on May 19, 2017. China and ASEAN have taken a giant leap together for all mankind living around the South China Sea rim.

The 14th Senior Officials’ Meeting on the Implementation of the ‘Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea’ (DOC) has passed the framework of the “Code on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” (COC). There seems to be just a difference of a single word, but actually with profound political meanings to interpret and understand.

The Declaration as a milestone document between ASEAN and China was signed in 2002. Since then, 15 years have passed. However, it is widely commented that the Declaration has not fulfilled its mission in ‘building greater trust between the claimant states and preventing the dispute from escalating’ as it promised. Rather, as many claim, it only played the role of imposing moral constraints on relevant parties, though it has at least served as a reference point when tensions emerged or conflicts escalated, which offer the grounds for negotiations and crisis management. Thus, as the parties involving the South China Sea issue asserted, a formal and practical CODE of conduct (COC) is in urgent need.

For that matter, China and ASEAN countries have accelerated the process of COC negotiation and formation, as well as addressed the loopholes of the DOC in recent years. This is undoubtedly a tough work, with numerous rounds of bargaining, compromising, accommodating, exchanging and redistributing the interest. That is why this passing of the Framework of the CODE is widely regarded as a pivotal milestone of COC building.

What is more, this long-lasting endeavour struggling for peace and wealth for all participating counties within the region are often interrupted by unexpected interruptions from out-of-area great powers. Therefore, the most practical, careful and creative measurement of this meeting, in the author’s view, is the confidential processing of the negotiation details and full text of the CODE. As Liu Zhenmin answered the reporters, the framework includes introduction, targets, principles, core promise, and final provisions. However, he refused to tell more details of the CODE. Instead, as he underlined, China and the ten ASEAN counties have reached an agreement that they will keep the draft of CODE as internal and confidential files on temporary basis. The two reasons as Liu Zhenmin explains, one is because the negotiation is still in process, the other is the common intention that all eleven participating countries do not want to be interrupted by any external interruptions.

Liu’s words make the author recall his early experience of learning English with the popular textbook ‘New Concept English’. There is one interesting short text, in which an angry man threw down a tough response to another guy who ‘interrupted’ his talk with a lady, ‘It’s none of your business. This is a private conversation!’

‘It’s none of your business. This is a private conversation!’ That is the key point. Those eleven participating countries have been suffered from outside interruptions in many issues for years, including the South China Sea issue. My external elements and tactics have put sand in the wheels of China-ASEAN accommodation and mutual trust building, such as the western-constructed sad memory (and hence the fear) of tributary system in East Asian history, the instigations made by super powers during and after the Cold War that broke down the society of states in the local region, and the practices of divide-and-rule strategies conducted by multinational oil companies and their back-up-governments, and so forth. Now it is time to carry out the promise that once proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), ‘The Asian Problems must and will be solved by Asian people themselves.’

Although now it is just a draft of the CODE framework that has been passed by the participating countries and there will be undoubtedly a long and tough way to go, it is safe to say that the Landmark progress from D (Declaration) to C (Code) as the Promising Whisper among China and ASEAN Brothers is ‘one small step of a single word, one giant leap for 2 billion mankind around’.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)