DATE: May 19, 2026
The short answer, according to most regional observers, is yes — but also no. The COC process has real value as a confidence-building mechanism, a diplomatic pressure valve, and a framework within which smaller claimant states can engage Beijing on terms that are at least multilateral. What it has not produced is a legally binding instrument with enforcement teeth. That gap is not accidental. It is the product of deliberate Chinese strategy, ASEAN institutional constraints, and a fundamental divergence of interests among the claimants themselves.
**The Legal Architecture and Its Limits**
The 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) established the baseline framework. It committed parties to resolving disputes peacefully, refraining from inhabiting currently uninhabited features, and pursuing a code of conduct through dialogue. The problem is that the DOC is not treaty-binding, carries no enforcement mechanisms, and was deliberately drafted to buy time rather than resolve anything.
Negotiations toward the COC have proceeded in fits and starts since 2005. A framework was agreed in 2017, a single draft text was tabled in 2018, and consultations have continued through multiple iterations. The core disagreements remain largely unchanged: China insists the COC must respect the “soft” nature of ASEAN-China relations and remain non-binding in its dispute resolution provisions; the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia want geographic scope limited to contested areas, while Beijing wants the code to implicitly legitimize its nine-dash line claim across the entirety of the sea.
An international tribunal in The Hague ruled in 2016 that China’s nine-dash line claim had no basis under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Beijing rejected that ruling and has continued constructing and militarizing artificial islands throughout its claimed territory. The ruling created a legal asymmetry that the COC negotiations have never resolved: the Philippines holds a favorable legal position it cannot unilaterally enforce, while China holds a physical position it cannot legally defend but will not relinquish.
**Philippine Chairmanship and the Cebu Push**
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. arrived at Cebu with a clear mandate to use the chairmanship to accelerate COC talks. His pitch to fellow ASEAN leaders was practical: a binding code would not resolve sovereignty disputes, but it would establish red lines — around reef occupation, vessel collisions, and the use of water cannons — that Beijing would find costly to cross if the alternative is documented condemnation by ten ASEAN states simultaneously.
The challenge is that ASEAN decides by consensus. Any one member state can block or water down a collective position. Cambodia, Laos, and to a degree Myanmar have historically aligned with Beijing’s preferences on South China Sea discussions, whether from economic dependency, political solidarity, or a combination of both. That consensus requirement means the strongest possible ASEAN position on any given day is still a floor, not a ceiling.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo framed it differently in Cebu: the goal is not a perfect document but a credible one. “Credibility is not measured by whether every comma is disputed,” he told delegates. “It is measured by whether both sides believe that violating the code carries costs they would rather avoid.” That is a lower bar than the Philippines’ 2016 legal victory but a more realistic one for the current moment.
**China’s Dual Strategy**
Beijing has responded to Philippine assertiveness with a two-track approach: diplomatic engagement at the ASEAN level combined with continued physical presence operations in disputed waters. In the weeks surrounding the Cebu Summit, Chinese Coast Guard vessels maintained persistent patrols near Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal, both of which the Philippines occupies on a rotational resupply basis. There were no kinetic incidents, but the message was clear: diplomatic normalization does not imply territorial concession.
China’s framing of the COC process — that it should reflect “ASEAN centrality” and “mutual respect” — is itself a strategic instrument. By insisting that the code respect both parties’ historical claims and not privilege UNCLOS legal rulings, Beijing seeks to embed the principle that China’s nine-dash line cannot be invalidated by a regional code, even if international law has already done so.
Simultaneously, China has deepened economic integration with ASEAN through RCEP, the ASEAN Power Grid, and infrastructure investment. The message to individual member states is consistent: cooperation on the COC need not come at the cost of the broader relationship. The implied subtext is equally clear: those who push hardest on the maritime file may find their economic agendas held hostage to their diplomatic ones.
**The Middle Powers and the Coalition Model**
What is notable about the current moment is that several ASEAN member states are no longer relying solely on the bloc to manage South China Sea risks. The Philippines has deepened its Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the United States, hosting expanded rotational deployments and joint exercises that would have been politically unthinkable a decade ago. Japan, under its new security architecture, has deployed maritime surveillance assets in partnership with Philippine coast guard functions. Australia and New Zealand maintain their own freedom-of-navigation postures in the sea.
This creates what regional security analysts describe as a layered deterrence architecture: ASEAN consensus as the slow-moving diplomatic floor; bilateral and minilateral security partnerships as the faster-moving operational layer; and the broader US alliance network as the ultimate backstop. The limitation is coordination latency — these layers are not seamlessly integrated, and in a rapid-onset crisis, the seams between them are where miscalculation becomes possible.
Vietnam occupies a particularly interesting position. It shares Beijing’s communist political system but has the most contested maritime claims after the Philippines. Vietnamese strategists have quietly pursued a hedging posture: deepening economic ties with China while simultaneously investing in naval modernization and engaging the United States as a counterweight. The 2024 establishment of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Vietnam and the United States signaled that Hanoi will not choose sides cleanly — and that it intends to be a principal actor in any South China Sea settlement, not a passive object of great-power bargaining.
**Prospects and the Horizon Beyond Cebu**
The honest assessment of the COC process is that it is less a mechanism for resolving disputes than a mechanism for managing them. The gap between a binding code and a genuinely enforced one is not a drafting problem — it is a political one. No ASEAN member state, including the Philippines, is prepared to pay the economic and diplomatic costs of triggering genuine enforcement mechanisms against China. And Beijing knows this.
What the Cebu Summit achieved was not a breakthrough on the COC text itself. What it accomplished was the reaffirmation that ASEAN as a bloc retains a stake in the maritime question — that the member states most directly affected by Chinese reclamation and militarization are not abandoned by their neighbors, even when consensus is elusive. That is a modest outcome by any measure. In the South China Sea, where the gap between legal principle and physical reality has never been wider, modest may be all that is available.
The next round of COC consultations is expected to resume in July. All parties have agreed to a “single draft text” process intended to reduce the proliferation of bracketed options. Whether that draft emerges with fewer brackets — or whether it simply organizes the existing disagreements more efficiently — will determine whether the Cebu gambit moves the file forward or simply refreshes it for another decade of negotiation.
—
*Leo Nakamura is a regional affairs correspondent for Media Hook covering Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific developments.*