Officials Slam Rights Report

Surya Subedi (L) speaks to the media in Phnom Penh, May 9, 2012.

Cambodia’s government rejects a UN report seeking electoral reforms and respect for human rights.

Cambodian government officials have rejected a report by a United Nations expert pushing for electoral reforms and accusing the authorities of rights violations over economic land concessions.

They said that the report by Surya Subedi, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, does not paint an accurate picture of the current status of human rights in the country.

Subedi warned in the report that Cambodia may plunge into violence if it does not reform the current electoral system to allow for fair and free elections.

He also said that the human costs of economic land concessions in the country have been high, adding that the absence of proper consultation and negotiation with the people affected when granting such concessions has been a major concern.

Om Yin Tieng, head of the government’s Human Rights Committee said Subedi was taking a biased approach to the situation in Cambodia, accusing him of siding with the country’s political opposition and civil society.

“Subedi should work as an adviser to the opposition instead of as the U.N. Rapporteur,” he said.

“The situation of human rights in Cambodia is not as bad as what he wrote in his report.”

Phay Siphan, spokesperson for the Council of Ministers, also dismissed Subedi’s findings, calling the information “outdated” and saying it did not reflect the “positive developments of human rights in Cambodia.”

“The government has been promoting democracy, human rights, and land reforms with great success,” he said.

Report praised
But Subedi’s report received praise from Cambodia’s political opposition and nongovernmental organization (NGO) communities, which said that the government should stop denying the problems it has caused and work together to solve them.

Rong Chhun, head of the Cambodian Independent Teacher’s Association, hailed Subedi’s report as highlighting “much-needed truth.”

“The rights to assembly and expression, and the rights to housing and agricultural land, have been threatened by the government’s economic land concessions,” he said.

Yim Sovan, Member of Parliament for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, also expressed support for Subedi’s report.

“The government has forced villagers from their homes and land for development without proper compensation,” he said.

“The government has to be responsible for the violation of human rights in this country and should not try to make any pretext or excuse to cover up the situation.”

Tools of repression
Opposition Human Rights Party MP Ou Channrith said that the government has used the very institutions meant to protect the rights of the people as tools to stifle them.

“The government has used the armed forces and judicial system to threaten and suppress the opposition party, civil society, workers, and citizens,” he said.

Subedi’s report is to be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva at its upcoming September meeting.

In the report, the Special Rapporteur detailed "major flaws" in the administration of elections in Cambodia and called for "urgent and longer-term reforms" to give Cambodians confidence in the electoral process and in the National Election Committee, which organizes and manages polls.

RFA

ASEAN struggles to cope with rival claims in the South China Sea

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA — Thrown off balance by a cacophony of claims in the South China Sea, Southeast Asia is struggling to cope with the “big and heavy” presence of China and the United States in the region and needs to face up to growing security and political challenges, the secretary general of a regional group said in an interview.

Surin Pitsuwan was speaking Monday after the start of a meeting of economic ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the Cambodian town of Siem Reap. It was the first major gathering of regional officials since an acrimonious conclave last month that highlighted deep divisions created by China’s increasingly assertive territorial claims in the South China Sea and rhetorical blasts about the waterway from Beijing and Washington.

At the earlier meeting, in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, foreign ministers could not agree on the wording of a final communique for the first time since the regional association’s founding in 1967.
Pitsuwan, Thailand’s former foreign minister and head of ASEAN’s secretariat since 2008, said in an interview that he was surprised by the breakdown in Phnom Penh, where the group’s customary low-key pursuit of compromise gave way to testy deadlock amid complaints of microphones being abruptly disconnected and allegations of backstage meddling by China.

The failure, Pitsuwan said , was “a wake-up call that these [security] issues will occur and we should be prepared to handle them.”

Cambodia, a close friend of China and the current holder of ASEAN’s rotating chairmanship, refused during the July gathering to accept pleas that the final communique include a mention of recent flare-ups in the South China Sea between China and two ASEAN members, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Manila and Hanoi accused Cambodia of putting its allegiance to Beijing ahead of its obligations to its regional partners and of pushing the 10-nation group to its most severe crisis in years. Cambodia, although heavily dependent on Chinese aid and investment, angrily denied acting on instructions from Beijing.

Tensions in the South China Sea, where five ASEAN members have claims that brush up against those of Beijing, are “becoming more and more of a stress on the system,” Pitsuwan said. That, he added, underscores the urgent need to make progress toward a stalled code of conduct for the disputed waters. The key, he said, is to “get around” questions of sovereignty and focus instead on practical measures to curb the risk of maritime clashes. But, he said, “this will take some time, because it is emotionally charged and extremely volatile. Positions are far apart, but eventually, we will get to a practical solution.”

Role as ‘insulation’
ASEAN, which is meeting near the ancient temples of Angkor Wat under the slogan “one community, one destiny,” has traditionally worked to paper over its differences. The risk of conflict in the South China Sea, however, has exposed the shortcomings of that approach at a time when China and the United States are stepping up their military and diplomatic activities in the region.

Washington takes no position on the territorial disputes. But the Obama administration, which has made a foreign policy “pivot” to Asia, has voiced growing concern over the risks of confrontation in the waterway. Th£e United States has stepped up security cooperation with the Philippines, with which it has a 61-year-old mutual defense treaty, and with Vietnam, which looks to America as a counterweight to a rising China.

Jousting over the South China Sea and over disputed islands to the north claimed by both Japan and China has shadowed booming trade and investment ties across East Asia and added to frictions between Beijing and Washington. The State Department this month criticized China for setting up a military garrison on an island in the South China Sea, accusing it of undermining diplomatic efforts to resolve disputes peacefully. China lambasted the U.S. assertions, with the state-run Xinhua News Agency dismissing them as “groundless and irresponsible” and urging Washington to “draw back its meddling hand.”

The feuding has pushed ASEAN into the uncomfortable role of acting as “insulation between China and the U.S.,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, an Australian expert on regional security and the author of a recent study of the group’s troubles over the South China Sea.

Originally set up in response to fears of communist subversion in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, ASEAN was long scorned by China as an instrument of the United States but has in recent years been embraced by Beijing as a vehicle to boost economic ties.

At the same time, China has been alarmed by ASEAN’s moves to become more involved in political and security issues, with some Chinese foreign policy experts warning that the association could go the way of the Arab League, a long-somnolent organization that, reinvigorated by the Arab Spring, has been at odds with Beijing in recent months over what to do in Syria and elsewhere.

China rejects any role for ASEAN in resolving territorial disputes and insists that the ownership of islands and reefs in the South China Sea can be addressed only through bilateral talks. But it has expressed some readiness to discuss a code of conduct for the waterway. “China wants ASEAN to be reasonably strong but also compliant,” Thayer said.

Wary of getting bogged down in arcane but highly contentious maritime quarrels, ASEAN ministers meeting this week are focusing on trade and other economic issues and want to stay clear of the South China Sea. “I’m not going to touch it. This is strictly economic,” said Gita Wirjawan, Indonesia’s trade minister.

Wealth gap a threat
In his opening address, Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, made no mention of the maritime disputes but instead spoke of the debt crisis in Europe, high oil prices and slowing export growth, and he singled out the wealth gap between member states as “a great threat” to the association’s future.

Pitsuwan, the secretary general, said “political hiccups” over the South China Sea will not slow what he described as an irreversible trend toward greater economic integration.

The association, which includes some of the world’s most dynamic economies as well as some of its weaker ones, such as Burma, Laos and Cambodia, is working to establish a single market in 2015, an important step toward regional integration akin to moves in Europe that led to the creation of the European Union. But, Pitsuwan said, ASEAN has no plans to set up a large central bureaucracy similar to the one in Brussels. The association’s administrative headquarters in Jakarta has only about 200 employees, including clerical staff and drivers. The European Commission in Brussels has more than 33,000.

ASEAN, he said, “needs a strong central mechanism so that it can be a driving force, but that has implications for sovereignty” that member states are not ready to accept.

At a time when Europe’s far more advanced drive for integration has been stalled by the continent’s financial turmoil and tensions between the E.U.’s richer and poorer member states, Southeast Asia “has to be extremely careful,” Pitsuwan said. “Europe for us is an inspiration, not a model.”

Andrew Higgins

ASEAN integration: one step forward, two steps back

Going by its "roadmap", ASEAN will by 2015 become an economic community with a US$2 trillion combined market and become a magnet for integration across the whole of East Asia, the world's most dynamic region.

This concept of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was mooted in 1997 - at the height of the Asian financial crisis.

In their bid to keep ASEAN relevant amid the rise of China and India, the region's leaders sought to build the AEC on four planks - a single market and production base; a competitive community; an area of equitable economic development; and a region integrated into the global economy.

Fifteen years on and less than three years away from the 2015 target, however, there is some cause for concern.

Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, speaking at a recent ASEAN conference organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), summed up the zeitgeist: to keep the region plugged into the global economy, ASEAN needs to pursue its economic integration "relentlessly", he said, adding that the bloc will need to work on two issues - liberalising the services sector across the region, and non-tariff barriers.

Therein lies the rub. ASEAN officials regularly tout that - according to a "scorecard" studying the progress of the AEC - 66 per cent of measures to achieve a single market and production base have been implemented. That figure, however, represents low-hanging fruit, such as the removal of tariffs.

While the original ASEAN six - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - boast that 99.65 per cent of tariff lines across the region have been removed, the fact is, non-tariff barriers (NTBs) continue to impede business.

In Malaysia, NTBs can be found in the automotive, oil and gas sectors. In Indonesia there are restrictions on beef imports.

In addition to restrictions on the free flow of goods, freedom of workers' movements is another issue holding up the AEC, says Ms Sanchita Basu Das, a lead economic researcher at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and the editor of "Achieving The ASEAN Economic Community 2015", a collection of essays studying the AEC's implementation.

In Thailand, for example, the Alien Employment Act prohibits foreigners from being employed in professions such as civil engineering and legal services.

Says Ms Basu Das: "If you say you have the free movement of labour but have restrictions, you cannot say you enjoy such free movement of labour."

In terms of enhancing physical connectivity, ASEAN has come some way. In 2010, it tabled a Connectivity Masterplan to enhance physical and people-to-people links.

But the enabling ASEAN Infrastructure Fund has initial equity of only $485 million. It has been estimated that ASEAN will need to spend $60 billion a year on infrastructure.

"ASEAN has a lot of connectivity initiatives, but a number of them are impeded by structural weaknesses, low responsiveness to users, organisational inefficiencies, insufficient funding and heavy dependence on overseas development aid," says Pushpanathan Sundram, the managing director of EAS Strategic Advice, a consultancy. He was formerly an ASEAN deputy secretary-general.

More importantly, the members of ASEAN at its current stage of development face the same dilemma that other regional bodies such as the European Union have faced - the surrender of more sovereignty to a regional organisation. Put differently, many ASEAN countries struggle with whether to put ASEAN's interests above their own national interests.

A classic example is that of gas pipelines in Thailand and Malaysia, which are held by monopolies. This would hinder the formation of trans-ASEAN gas pipelines.

"For integration to move ahead, we really need a change in mindsets. ASEAN countries have to think regional and act national to implement locally the grouping's regional economic commitments," says Pushpanathan.

This is not to say that all is lost for the AEC. ASEAN, unlike the EU, started out more as a political body than an economic one. The EU started out as an economic body focused on coal and steel, and then took on political dimensions later. As a result, expectations about the AEC should be moderated.

Moreover, the fact that ASEAN remains externally oriented bodes well. During the Cold War, the bloc sought to avoid being used as a geopolitical pawn by the superpowers, leading to perceptions of a "fortress ASEAN". Today, however, it has sought to be part of the great geopolitical game in Asia, seeking to draw in great powers like China and the US. It has made itself relevant by signing free trade agreements with countries such as Australia and China.

More importantly, ASEAN will not lose out to China in the foreign direct investment stakes if the AEC leverages on the fact that the grouping is made up of countries at different levels of development.

Gautam Banerjee, the executive chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers Singapore, says ASEAN can entice potential investors by getting them to locate "softer" functions such as logistics, treasury and supply chain management in its more advanced countries, say, Singapore, and get "heavy lifting" manufacturing operations done in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

"If we can ignite some of this thinking … ASEAN can be a credible challenge to China," said Banerjee at the SIIA conference.

To an extent, this is already happening. The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office says some Hong Kong firms have decided to invest in ASEAN countries rather than mainland China.

There is a combination of push and pull factors, a spokesman adds. In China, labour costs have risen due to the strengthening yuan. In addition, ASEAN's recent strong economic performance and low labour costs have made the region attractive.

Looking ahead, ASEAN's economic prospects would be much enhanced if the private sector - rather than the bureaucrats - took the lead.

However, the entire AEC enterprise is still very much a top-down endeavour and ASEAN watchers say it receives relatively little input from businessmen, the very people who should be spearheading integration.

The experiences of Thai companies are indicative. According to a survey by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, only 11 per cent of firms polled said they understood what the AEC is about. The rest said they had no idea.

No wonder then that the utilisation of the ASEAN Free Trade Area by ASEAN firms stood at only 23 per cent in 2008.

Granted, a group of business leaders - including the chiefs of CIMB Bank, AirAsia and Ayala Group - has launched the ASEAN Business Club, a private-sector initiative to engage in ASEAN integration. But ASEAN still has its work cut out for it.

"ASEAN businessmen have let their bureaucrats run away with whatever they want to do. They need to speak up for themselves," says Dr Suthad Setboonsarng, senior adviser at BowerGroupAsia, a business advisory firm.

"If it wants ASEAN to be effective, the private sector has to guide governments. So don't complain about ASEAN not working, if the private sector is not working."

ASEAN has been in the news recently for failing to come up with a communique amid differences over its handling of the contentious South China Sea issue, which involves China and ASEAN member states such as Vietnam and the Philippines. The South China Sea issue is important, but it will be a political issue that will continue to test ASEAN's leadership and coherence for years to come.

In the meantime, however, effective economic integration - the bread and butter of ASEAN's existence - should deliver the goods that will make ASEAN relevant.

William Choong

China Pushes on the South China Sea, ASEAN Unity Collapses

For more than two decades Beijing has pursued a consistent policy in the South China Sea composed of two main elements: gradually strengthening the country’s territorial and jurisdictional claims while at the same time endeavoring to assure Southeast Asian countries of its peaceful intentions. Recent moves by China to bolster its maritime claims have brought the first element into sharp relief, while reassurances of benign intent have, however, been in short supply. Indeed, far from assuaging Southeast Asian concerns regarding its assertive behavior, China has fuelled them by brazenly exploiting divisions within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to further its own national interests.

China Hardens Its Stance

Commentaries in China’s state-run media analyzing the South China Sea issue have become markedly less conciliatory. Opinion pieces highlight several new themes in China’s official line. One theme is that China’s territory, sovereignty as well as its maritime rights and interests increasingly are being challenged by Southeast Asian nations and Japan in the South and East China Seas. China’s response, it is argued, should be to uphold its claims more vigorously, increase its military presence in contested waters, and, if necessary, be prepared to implement coercive measures against other countries. As one commentary notes “Cooperation must be in good faith, competition must be strong, and confrontation must be resolute” (Caixin, July 13).

Another theme is that, while China has shown restraint, countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam have been pursuing provocative and illegal actions in a bid to “plunder” maritime resources such as hydrocarbons and fisheries which China regards as its own (China Daily, July 30).

A third theme is that Manila and Hanoi continue to encourage U.S. “meddling” in the South China Sea and that the United States uses the dispute as a pretext to “pivot” its military forces toward Asia (Global Times, July 11). To reverse these negative trends, Chinese commentators have urged the government to adopt more resolute measures toward disputed territories and maritime boundaries. Nationalist sentiment, they argue, demands no less.

Recent measures undertaken by the Chinese authorities do indeed suggest a more hard-line position. Ominously, some of the initiatives have included a strong military element, presumably as a warning to the other claimants that China is ready to play hardball.

Perhaps the most noteworthy attempt by China to bolster its jurisdictional claims in the South China Sea was the raising of the administrative status of Sansha from county to prefecture level in June. Sansha originally was established in 2007 as an administrative mechanism to “govern” the Paracel Islands, Macclesfield Bank and the Spratly Islands. Sansha’s elevation was an immediate response to a law passed on June 21  by Vietnam’s national assembly, which reiterated Hanoi’s sovereignty claims to the Paracels and Spratlys. Both Vietnam and China protested the other’s move as a violation of their sovereignty (Bloomberg, June 21). Less than a month later, Sansha’s municipal authorities elected a mayor and three deputy mayors and China’s Central Military Commission authorized the establishment of a garrison for “managing the city’s national defense mobilization, military reserves and carrying out military operations (Xinhua, July 20).

Earlier, in late June, China’s Defense Ministry announced it had begun “combat ready” patrols in the Spratly Islands to “protect national sovereignty and [China’s] security development interests” (Reuters, June 28). Embarrassingly for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, however, on July 13, one of its frigates ran aground on Half Moon Shoal, 70 miles west of the Philippine island of Palawan and within the Philippines 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The frigate was refloated within 24 hours, suggesting that other PLA Navy vessels were nearby when the incident occurred. These developments provide further evidence of the growing militarization of the dispute.

China also has moved to undercut the claims and commercial activities of the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea in other ways.

In June, the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) invited foreign energy companies to bid for exploration rights in nine blocks in the South China Sea. The blocks lie completely within Vietnam’s EEZ and overlap with those offered for development to foreign energy corporations by state-owned PetroVietnam. Accordingly, Hanoi vigorously protested CNOOC’s tender (Bloomberg, June 27). More importantly the blocks are located at the edge of China’s nine-dash line map and seem to support the argument that Beijing interprets the dashes as representing the outermost limits of its “historic rights” in the South China Sea. Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), however, coastal states are not entitled to “historic rights” on the high seas. It is therefore unlikely that any of the major energy giants will bid for CNOOC’s blocks—although smaller companies may do so if only to curry favor with Beijing with a view to landing more lucrative contracts down the road. If, however, exploration does move forward in any of the nine blocks, a clash between Vietnamese and Chinese coast guard vessels will become a very real possibility.

On the issue of ownership of Scarborough Shoal, scene of a tense standoff between Chinese and Philippines fishery protection vessels in May-June, China position remains uncompromising. At the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in July, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi restated China’s sovereignty claims to the shoal, rejected the notion that it was disputed and accused Manila of “making trouble” (Xinhua, July 13). According to the Philippine foreign ministry, Chinese trawlers―protected by Chinese paramilitary vessels—continue to fish in waters close to Scarborough Shoal in contravention of a bilateral accord whereby both sides agreed to withdraw their vessels [1].

Following the ARF, China kept up the pressure on the Philippines. In mid-July, it dispatched a flotilla of 30 fishing trawlers to the Spratlys escorted by the 3,000-ton fisheries administration vessel Yuzheng 310 (Xinhua, July 15). The trawlers collected coral and fished near Philippine-controlled Pag-asa Island and Chinese-controlled Mischief and Subi Reefs (Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 27). The Philippine authorities monitored the situation but took no action.

The Phnom Penh Debacle

In the past, after China has undertaken assertive actions in the South China Sea it has tried to calm Southeast Asia’s jangled nerves. At the series of ASEAN-led meetings in Phnom Penh in mid-July, however, Chinese officials offered virtually no reassurances to their Southeast Asian counterparts. Worse still, China seems to have utilized its influence with Cambodia to scupper attempts by ASEAN to address the problem, causing a breakdown in ASEAN unity.

In the final stages of the annual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers (known as the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting or AMM), the Philippines and Vietnam wanted the final communiqué to reflect their serious concerns regarding the Scarborough Shoal incident and the CNOOC tender. They were supported by Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand who felt that ASEAN should speak with one voice. Cambodia—which holds the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN and has close political and economic ties with China— objected because, in the words of Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, “ASEAN cannot be used as a tribunal for bilateral disputes” (Straits Times, July 22). Attempts by Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa to reach a compromise on the wording were unsuccessful and for the first time in its 45-year history the AMM did not issue a final communiqué.

The fallout from the AMM was immediate and ugly. Natalegawa labelled ASEAN’s failure to reach agreement “irresponsible” and that the organization’s centrality in the building of the regional security architecture had been put at risk (Straits Times, July 16). Singapore’s Foreign Minister, K. Shanmugam described the fiasco as a “sever dent” in ASEAN’s credibility (Straits Times, July 14). Cambodia and the Philippines blamed the failure on each other. Cambodia was pilloried by the regional press for its lack of leadership and for putting its bilateral relationship with China before the overall interests of ASEAN. One analyst alleged  Cambodian officials had consulted with their Chinese counterparts during the final stages of talks to reach an agreement on the communiqué [2]. China’s Global Times characterized the outcome of the AMM as a victory for China, which does not think ASEAN is an appropriate venue to discuss the dispute, and a defeat for the Philippines and Vietnam (Global Times, July 16).

A few days after the AMM, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono dispatched his foreign minister to five Southeast Asian capitals in an effort to restore ASEAN unity. Natalegawa’s shuttle diplomacy resulted in an ASEAN foreign minister’s statement of July 20 on “ASEAN’s Six-Point Principles on the South China Sea” [3]. The six points, however, broke no new ground and merely reaffirmed ASEAN’s bottom line consensus on the South China Sea. In response to the joint statement, China’s Foreign Ministry said it would work with ASEAN to implement the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DoC) (Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 21).

One of the six points calls for the early conclusion of a code of conduct (CoC) for the South China Sea, but the Phnom Penh debacle has made that target highly doubtful.

Although China agreed to discuss a CoC with ASEAN in November 2011, Beijing always has been lukewarm about such an agreement, preferring instead to focus on implementing the DoC. Undeterred, earlier this year ASEAN began drawing up guiding principles for a code and in June agreed on a set of “proposed elements.” While much of the document is standard boiler plate, there are two aspects worthy of attention.

The first is that ASEAN calls for a “comprehensive and durable” settlement of the dispute, a phrase that seems to repudiate Deng Xiaoping’s proposal that the parties should shelve their sovereignty claims and jointly develop maritime resources. Clearly, the four ASEAN claimants have rejected Deng’s formula as it would be tantamount to recognizing China’s “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea atolls.

The second interesting aspect concerns mechanisms for resolving disputes arising from violations or interpretations of the proposed code. The document suggests that disputing parties turn to the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) or dispute resolution mechanisms in UNCLOS. Neither, however, would be of much utility. While the TAC does provide for a dispute resolution mechanism in the form of an ASEAN High Council, this clause has never been invoked due to the highly politicized nature of the High Council and the fact that it cannot issue binding rulings. Moreover, although China acceded to the TAC in 2003, Beijing almost certainly would oppose discussion of the South China Sea at the High Council because it would be outnumbered 10 to 1.

UNCLOS does provide for binding dispute resolution mechanisms, including the submission of disputes to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). China always has rejected a role for the ICJ in resolving the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and, in 2006, China exercised its right to opt out of ITLOS procedures concerning maritime boundary delimitation and military activities.

On July 9, Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying had indicated to ASEAN foreign ministers that China was willing to start talks on a CoC in September. Two days later, however, as ASEAN wrangled over their final communiqué, Foreign Minister Yang seemed to rule this out when he stated discussions could only take place “when the time was ripe” (Straits Times, July 11). At present ASEAN and China are not scheduled to hold any meetings on the CoC, though officials currently are discussing joint cooperative projects under the DoC.

If and when the two sides do sit down to discuss the CoC, it is probable that Beijing will demand all reference to dispute resolution be removed on the grounds that the proposed code is designed to manage tensions only and that the dispute can only be resolved between China and each of the other claimants on a one-on-one basis. Taken together, these developments have dimmed seriously the prospect of China and ASEAN reaching agreement on a viable code of conduct for the South China Sea any time soon. As such, the status quo will continue for the foreseeable future.

Ian Storey

Notes:

1. “Why There was no ASEAN Joint Communique,” Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, July 19, 2012 http://www.dfa.gov.ph/main/index.php/newsroom/dfa-releases/5950-why-there-was-no-asean-joint-communique-.
2. Ernest Bower, “China reveals its hand on ASEAN in Phnom Penh,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 20 2012.
3. “Statement of ASEAN Foreign Ministers on ASEAN’s Six-Point Principles on the South China Sea,” Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 20, 2012 http://www.mfaic.gov.kh/mofa/default.aspx?id=3206.

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