At regional summit discussions on Thursday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. pressed Chinese Premier Li Qiang on recent confrontations in the West Philippine Sea, raising concerns that tensions might arise in the contested waterway.
After a day of negotiations dominated by the Myanmar civil conflict, Li met with the leaders of the ASEAN’s ten members in Laos.
In recent months, there have been several violent fights between Chinese and Philippine vessels in areas near disputed reefs and islands in the West Philippine Sea.
Marcos brought up the matter during his meeting with Li, emphasizing that “you cannot separate economic cooperation from political security,” according to a Southeast Asian diplomat who was there.
The Li meeting was mostly focused on commerce, and it occurred on the same day that the premier met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who announced that Beijing had agreed to relax restrictions on the lucrative lobster industry.
However, Marcos warned the meeting that ASEAN and China cannot pretend that everything is well on the economic front while political tensions exist.
Marcos also suggested that both sides speed up talks on a maritime code of conduct.
“There should be more urgency in the pace of the negotiations of the ASEAN-China Code of Conduct (COC),” explained him.
“The definition of a concept as basic as ‘self-restraint’ does not yet enjoy consensus,” according to him.
ASEAN previously stated that it intends to finalize a code of conduct in the West Philippine Sea by 2026, a document that will outline how claimant countries might peacefully resolve disputes in the crucial waterway.
However, disagreements over whether the COC should be legally binding and whether non-claimant countries must seek approval before performing activities in the West Philippine Sea have delayed the document’s completion by decades.
ASEAN leaders reiterated long-standing appeals for restraint and respect for international law in the West Philippine Sea on Wednesday, according to a draft summit chairman’s statement obtained by AFP.
The increasing frequency and intensity of conflicts in the disputed waterway are raising fears that the situation will worsen.
“The South China Sea is a live and immediate issue, with real risks of an accident spiraling into conflict,” Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong told his fellow leaders at the meeting on Wednesday.
China claims almost all of the West Philippine Sea, a waterway of enormous strategic importance through which trillions of dollars in trade pass each year.
However, several ASEAN members—the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Brunei—have rival claims to many small islands and reefs.