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View all search resultsSouth China Sea COC negotiations continue next month amid rising Asia-Pacific tensions
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Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi speaks during a press conference after the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in Jakarta on Feb. 4, 2023.
(AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
T
his year’s first round of negotiations for the Code of Conduct (COC) at the South China Sea will commence in March, said the Foreign Ministry on Friday, where Indonesia as ASEAN chairman will lead efforts to “explore new approaches” in navigating the increasingly “destabilized” region.
The biggest hurdle for the upcoming talks, it added, would be mitigating the “security dilemma” which would inevitably make itself present, they noted.
The negotiations would be part of Indonesia’s priority to implement the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, the ministry added, whereby all ASEAN member states have pledged their commitment to promote the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), a document officiated two decades ago which calls for the formulation of the COC.
“[We agreed] to make our meetings with dialogue partners more effective and productive. [...] Commitment of members to conclude the negotiations of COC as soon as possible is obvious, bearing in mind the need to have a substantive, effective and actionable COC,” said Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi on the last day of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM).
Recent months have seen China’s nine-dash line claim over the South China Sea resulting in escalating tensions within the region. In late December, Beijing had sent its largest coastal guard vessel to monitor the North Natuna Sea, an area under Jakarta’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), just weeks before the United States announced its plans to build military bases in the Philippines.
The muscle flexing between the two superpowers has put ASEAN countries in a precarious position, with Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan warning that the situation “bears careful monitoring” on Wednesday ahead of Retno’s statement that the rivalry had become “destabilizing” to ASEAN.
Age-old dilemma
