Pursuing PHL’s balancing policy against Chinese maritime expansion in the West Philippine Sea

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the quintessential intergovernmental organization catering to its member-states’ national interests. It has no enforcement mechanisms. It relies primarily on the relative interpretations of its flexible and ambiguous rules and norms based on annual consultations and non-intervention in each member state’s domestic affairs. Consequently, the ASEAN is prone to institutional drift, making it vulnerable to its member states’ foreign policy agendas that can circumvent potential veto players.

Despite its structural and institutional weaknesses as a regional organization, memberstates still view ASEAN as expedient in protecting and advancing their national interests in a changing Indo-Pacific region. This is the case of the Philippines as it changed its foreign policy objectives on the South China Sea imbroglio.

During the 18th East Asian Summit last September in Jakarta, Indonesia, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. raised the issue of China’s violation of the rules-based international order in the South China Sea. He warned of the rising tension in the disputed waters that might spiral into an armed conflict. During his intervention at the summit meeting, he said, “We must not allow tension in the South China Sea to escalate further.” Without mentioning China, he added, “the Philippine government is concerned over consistent (Chinese) actions that violate obligations under international law, including the 1982 UNCLOS (United Nations Conventions of the Law of the Sea) and the DoC (Declaration of the Code of Conduct).”

PURSUING THE APPEASEMENT POLICY IN ASEAN

President Marcos’ direct criticism of Chinese behavior in the South China Sea dispute during the 43rd ASEAN Summit in September 2023 was in total contrast to how his predecessor, President Rodrigo Duterte, prevented any criticism of China when the Philippines hosted the 30th ASEAN summit in 2017.

President Duterte, as the summit’s chairperson at the time, avoided any adversarial statements directed at China. He reduced and diluted any references to the South China Sea dispute in the Chairman’s statement. He ensured that the chairman’s communiqué did not include any reference to Chinese island-building and weapons deployment on the reclaimed land features nor touch on the ruling that declared China’s excessive claim in the South China Sea a violation of international law.

The Duterte administration’s appeasement policy toward China included his administration’s decision to set aside the July 12, 2016 arbitral ruling despite the ruling having rendered China’s historical claims to sovereignty without any solid legal foundation. This prevented ASEAN from having a remedy for legally resolving the South China Sea dispute.

The Duterte administration’s appeasing behavior toward China during the 2017 ASEAN summit meetings was supposed to have created a magnetic field that