Members of Asean might have conflicting claims in the South China Sea but mutual trust exists in the bloc, Philippine defence chief Gilberto Teodoro Jnr said on Sunday, singling out Beijing as the biggest obstacle to a code of conduct in the disputed waterway.
Teodoro delivered strong words for China in the final panel of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, taking aim at Manila’s long-time maritime rival for disregarding an international arbitral tribunal which ruled in favour of the Philippines in 2016.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China have been negotiating the code since 2002 to reduce tensions in the contested waterway by setting rules for maritime behaviour and crisis management.
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But talks have repeatedly stalled over the years amid tensions over territorial claims and competing national interests between Beijing and some Asean states, most notably the Philippines.
As Asean chair, Manila has maintained that it would finalise the agreement by the end of this year before handing over the reins to Singapore.
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“Why is there a need for a code of conduct when we have peremptory norms such as Unclos, such as UN Charter, and the [COC] is a collective code by a group of nations on the one side and with a single actor on the other, so perhaps the problem does not lie within Asean, the problem lies with the counterparty to the code of conduct,” said Teodoro, who later named the country as China.