Code of Conduct – our best hope for peace

UNITED States President Donald Trump offered to mediate in the South China Sea disputes in the course of his meetings with East Asian leaders in Da Nang, Vietnam, and in Manila. “I’m a very good mediator and arbitrator,” he said.

It was good of the US president to make his offer to help, but the South China Sea problem may be beyond his – or any other leader’s – capacity to solve at this time. For one, China may not see the US as a disinterested arbitrator but a country with interests of its own to protect and assert. China has repeatedly opposed US “meddling” in what it considers a local problem with the countries around it, including the Philippines. The US, on the other hand, sees the world as its backyard, with its ships free to roam the seas and oceans holding aloft the flag of freedom of navigation.

There is also China’s rock-hard position that the South China Sea, as marked by a nine-dash line, is Chinese territory. It refused to recognize the Arbitral Court proceedings in The Hague which heard the Philippines’ complaints against China. And it refused to recognize the court’s eventual decision, upholding the Philippines’ claim to islands within its Exclusive Economic Zone under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

President Duterte has chosen not to act on the Philippine court victory at this time in favor of developing closer economic relations with China. The Philippine claim, as upheld by the Arbitral Court stands, to be pursued at an opportune time. But not at this time, the President said.

Thus he did not respond to President Trump’s offer to mediate in the South China Sea disputes which principally involve China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Taiwan. But he thanked President Trump for his offer. It was a welcome assurance that the US, the world’s most powerful country, continues to look after the peace in this part of the world and is not, as some fear, withdrawing into a shell of isolationism.

An agreement on a Code of Conduct —not a US move to mediate – is probably our best hope for the South China Sea at this time. There must be no further provocations, such as the building of new islands out of rocks and reefs rising above sea level at low tide. There must be no stopping or restricting or regulating of navigation, particularly of cargo ships. There must be no banning of fishermen from their traditional fishing grounds. This status quo will have to do for the present.

Perhaps at some future date, the various nations concerned will be willing to step back on their nowimmutable claims and positions. Until that day, we must hold on to the peace we now have.