How Sentiment Matters in International Relations: China and the South China Sea Dispute. David Groten

This is illustrated by the ASEAN response, or rather non-response, to the SCS arbitration verdict. Due to a veto by Cambodia, ASEAN refrained from even mentioning the international court ruling in two joint communiqués issued and adopted by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers in July and August 2016 (ASEAN, 2016a, 2016b), while the Philippines and Vietnam reportedly demanded the communique to specifically address the ruling and to call for the respect of international law (Liu & Wong, 2016; Gupta, 2017). Nonetheless, each ASEAN Member State, regardless of whether claimant or non-claimant party, has some kind of stake in the SCS issue. Therefore, several collective efforts have been made in the past to generally address the issue. In 1992, the ‘ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea’ (‘1992 Manila Declaration’), one of the most significant documents in managing the conflict in the SCS, was adopted. The declaration stressed, among others, “the necessity to resolve all sovereignty and jurisdictional issues pertaining to SCS by peaceful means, without resort to force” (ASEAN, 1992, July 22). The PRC was not part of the drafting process and neither did it become a signatory state in the aftermath. In 1999, a ‘draft code of conduct’ was introduced by the Philippines. In successive years, it was elaborated on by an ‘ASEAN Task Force’ and the ‘China Working Group Regional Code of Conduct’. Ultimately, an amended but still non-binding version of the original draft was signed by the PRC and ASEAN during the 8^th ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) on November 4, 2002. This ‘ASEAN-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea’ (DOC) emphasized the necessity to:

      “[M]aintain regional stability in the South China Sea under the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and other universally recognized principles of international law” (ASEAN, 2002, November 4).

      In addition, the DOC summarized the consensus to increase efforts with regard to confidence-building measures and to seek mutual trust. In so doing, the DOC, the very first document jointly issued by ASEAN and China, was generally perceived as a milestone on the way toward a binding code of conduct. In July 2011, the ‘Guidelines on the Implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea’ was adopted, a document reaffirming the significance of the DOC and providing a list of measures feasible to implement DOC provisions and objectives into precise practice. The ‘ASEAN-China Joint Working Group on the Implementation of the DOC (JWG), established in 2004, was commissioned to “formulate recommendations” on a number of issues such as “marine scientific research” and “safety of navigation and communication at sea” (ASEAN, 2004). However, this document was again guided by the typical principles of ‘ASEAN-style cooperation’ being mutual understanding, consensus, consultation, and cooperation. Therefore, all recommendations made by the JWG are non-binding and rest on a mere voluntary basis. However, quite contrary to the initial purpose of the 2002 and 2011 documents, each and every SCS claimant state (and beyond) has increased its military (especially maritime) capacities and forces; likewise, tensions have exacerbated instead of being mitigated. Therefore, parties to the 2002 and 2011 documents are currently negotiating a binding code of conduct. However, a date of ratification, let alone implementation, is still not in sight and progress is only slowly proceeding, despite the fact that a Single Draft BCoC negotiating text was agreed upon in August 2018 as the basis of future negotiations. To put it briefly, the common objective by ASEAN in the SCS may be summarized as long-term peace and security. This is to be accomplished by positioning itself at the heart of Southeast Asian regionalism, thereby providing a multilateral framework, which promotes peaceful conflict resolution in line with international law and discourages parties from unilateral military and other measures undermining these objectives.

      Following the introduction to this project’s single case study and its relevant context and stakeholders involved, chapter 4 entails the main QCA analysis and utilizes its key results for the analytical discussion of the three hypotheses.