South China Sea: Philippines approaches neighbours to discuss separate code as Beijing expands its presence in the area

The President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday that the country has engaged in discussions with neighbouring nations, including Malaysia and Vietnam to discuss a distinct code of conduct concerning the South China Sea. President Marcos emphasized the limited advancements in reaching a comprehensive regional agreement with China, noting the escalating challenges in the South China Sea due to China’s increasing presence and the overlapping territorial claims of multiple nations. In the past few years, ASEAN and China have worked towards creating a framework to negotiate a code of conduct, a plan dating as far back as 2002. However, progress has been slow despite commitments by all parties to advance and speed up the process. China has shown interest in atolls and shoals that are “closer and closer” to the coast of the Philippines, with the nearest atoll about 60 nautical miles (111 kilometres) away, Marcos said. “Unfortunately, I cannot report that the situation is improving,” Marcos said Sunday. “The situation has become more dire than it was before,” Marcos spoke during a question and answer session after he delivered a talk at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Honolulu. The Philippines president stopped in Hawaii to meet with US military leaders and the local Filipino community on his way home from a regional summit meeting in San Francisco. The visit held both geopolitical and personal significance for the leader. Marcos’s father, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was forced into exile in Hawaii in 1986 after he was ousted in an army-backed “people power” uprising in the Philippines. His trip comes at a time when the US and the Philippines have been deepening their long-standing alliance in a shift after Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, nurtured cosy ties with China and Russia. China claims virtually the entire South China Sea as its territory and refuses to acknowledge claims from the Philippines and four other governments to some or all of the waterway. Beijing has dismissed the findings of a UN-backed arbitration tribunal that invalidated China’s sweeping historical claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Marcos reiterated that his nation wouldn’t yield.“The Philippines will not give a single square inch of our territory to any foreign power,” he said in his speech. The US says China has militarized several islands it built in the area, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment, and fighter jets. Marcos said features in the South China Sea are “slowly being turned into bases”. He said Adm. John Aquilino, the top US military commander in the Indo-Pacific region, showed him a model of one earlier in the day. China stakes its claim on its maps with the use of a “nine-dash line” that loops as far as 1,500 km (900 miles) south of its mainland, cutting into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Manila and Beijing have engaged in on-off confrontations for years as China has become more assertive in pressing its maritime claims, alarming neighbours and other nations operating in the key trade route, such as the United States. China has turned submerged reefs into military installations equipped with radar, runways and missile systems, some inside the Philippines’ EEZ. Last month, a Chinese coast guard ship and an accompanying vessel rammed a Philippine coast guard ship and a military-run supply boat near the contested shoal, according to Philippine officials. China accused the Philippine vessels of trespassing in what it said were Chinese waters “without authorization” despite repeated radio warnings. The US and the Philippines have a mutual defence treaty dating to 1951. Marcos said the US, as its only treaty ally, was its main partner. But he said Manila also was seeking to strengthen ties with other nations sharing its ideals and values, noting the examples of Australia, Japan and South Korea. He said the Philippines also was seeking to negotiate a code of conduct with Vietnam and Malaysia, other nations with whom it has territorial conflicts. Many Filipinos immigrants to Hawaii come from the same province as Marcos, Ilocos Norte, and support him. But he still faced small protests at the airport and at a convention hall where he met members of the local Filipino community. Satu Limaye, the vice president of the East-West Centre, noted the US and the Philippines have a long, complicated relationship. He pointed to years when the US ruled the archipelago as a colony, their signing of the defence treaty and when the US military withdrew from major bases in the country in the 1990s. Limaye said it’s important to watch how the US and the Philippines manage their nations’ long and complex relationship while facing their common concern, China.