In its 2016 ruling, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague determined that China's claims to the South China Sea, based on the 'nine-dash line,' had no legal basis under UNCLOS. However, the Philippines finds itself caught between negotiating individually with China and seeking support from its ally, the United States—a choice that risks intensifying Chinese concerns of containment through proxy. ASEAN unity, expressed through effective cooperation and robust regional institutions, could offer a solution, helping smaller Asian nations assert their collective interests against larger powers and providing a platform to defend economic openness through mechanisms like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
It takes a lot to make the Taiwan Strait no longer seem like the most dangerous place in Asia, but a few small rocks and coral reefs in the South China Sea have once again taken center stage in this regard.
Manila has taken the legal high ground. The 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, while not addressing sovereignty, clearly stated that China’s claims to the sea, based on the 'nine-dash line' asserting its so-called 'historic rights' to the South China Sea, have no basis under UNCLOS.
The rest is history. The Duterte administration missed the opportunity to build a diplomatic coalition within ASEAN, which could have been the best hope of pushing China toward compliance with the 2016 ruling, leaving the bilateral dispute unresolved.
With President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. now distancing himself from the Duterte political clan, his political incentives point towards rejecting Duterte’s approach to the South China Sea issue by more assertively defending the Philippines' maritime claims.
Manila is in a tough position on how to address its territorial disputes with China. If it goes it alone, it faces the challenge of bilateral negotiations with a more powerful adversary, which views the issue as both a matter of national credibility and, if speculation about Beijing’s plans to establish the South China Sea as a sanctuary for its nascent submarine-based nuclear deterrent is accurate, a national security priority.
On the other hand, involving its security ally, the United States, risks accelerating a dynamic where Beijing—grappling with the classic great-power inability to empathize with the anxieties of smaller neighbors—begins to see its neighbors’ pushback against its claims as part of a U.S. containment strategy through proxies.
One can’t blame the Marcos administration for choosing the second option, given the prevailing perception in Manila that China is not interested in sincere negotiations to de-escalate tensions at Scarborough Shoal and the Spratlys.
However, the implication for the entire region is that the more the Philippines leverages its alliance with Washington, the stronger China’s incentive becomes to test U.S. commitments to the Philippines, leading to a cycle of brinkmanship that threatens the stability of the entire region. This also complicates ASEAN's efforts to press China more vocally to respect the 2016 PCA ruling.
The prominence of these two sub-optimal options in Manila’s policy choices reflects a lack of institutional channels through which it might harness the collective political influence of Asia’s small and middle powers, who together have a vested interest in holding China accountable to rules that safeguard their interests, yet individually lack the motivation to antagonize Beijing or align with Manila in bringing the United States into this specific confrontation.
As the South China Sea crisis starkly illustrates, Asia’s small and medium powers need better options than being subject to the power imbalances of bilateral relations with China when disputes arise or exacerbating China’s concerns of containment by involving their extra-regional ally, the United States.
ASEAN unity should be reflected in institutions and the like-minded cooperation they promote. The ASEAN-centered regional architecture is underutilized not only as a forum for the United States and China to work through their bilateral differences under multilateral engagement but also as a platform for expressing the collective interests of the broader Asian community in an open and pluralistic order.
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