Code of Conduct to secure ASEAN shipping lanes – analyst

A binding Code of Conduct in the West Philippine Sea will not only help ease tensions in the heavily disputed territory, it will also establish a more secured environment for regional trade and commerce, an international think tank said.

“The Code of Conduct can serve as a springboard for cooperation and unity among nations in the region not only politically but also economically,” said Dindo Manhit, President of the Stratbase ADR Institute.

Some estimates say up to $5 trillion worth of goods and logistics annually pass through the shipping lanes of the West Philippine Sea, one of the world’s busiest, Manhit added.

Some 40 to 60 percent of the world’s traded goods, including half of oiltanker shipments traverse the vital sea route. The valuable traffic also includes more than half of the world’s annual merchant fleet tonnage and a third of all maritime traffic worldwide.

In particular, oil transported through the Malacca Strait en route to East Asia via the West Philippine Sea is triple what passes through the Suez Canal and 15 times the volume that transits the Panama Canal.

This accounts for some two-thirds of South Korea’s energy supplies, nearly 60 percent of Japan’s and Taiwan’s, and 80 percent of China’s.

“These are staggering figures, and the cost of escalating conflict and hostility in the region, if they result in blocking this vital sea route, can be as high,” Manhit said.

For instance, rerouting oil tankers via the Lombok Strait and east of the Philippines can cost up to $600 million per year for Japan alone. Australia can be in a similar bind with its shipments, the reroute of which can cost up to $20 billion worth of cargo a year.

Stratbase had earlier called on the Duterte administration to restart talks around adopting a Code of Conduct in the West Philippine Sea, a year after the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague gave the Philippines a decisive legal victory in the ongoing sea row.

“A Code of Conduct will unite the region in reaffirming the common benefits of the ruling in terms of bolstering political peace as well as economic activity,” Manhit said.

As the Philippines holds this year’s chairmanship of ASEAN, the country has the prime opportunity to steer the discussion on the Code of Conduct, he added.

Despite forging warmer relations with Beijing, Manhit said, the Philippine government can still uphold the 2016 ruling as a legal precedent for ASEAN claimant-states to further clarify their respective maritime entitlements and boundaries.

“The award should not be seen as mere beneficial to the interest of the Philippines but to all claimants in the region with common interests in freedom of navigation for trade and other legitimate activities,” Manhit said.