Binding on both sides

Walk softly and carry a big stick. Theodore Roosevelt’s dictum of practical diplomacy works only if a big stick is handy, like a powerful navy that has just circled the world. In the matter of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the Philippines does not wield anything that can be mistaken for a big stick. It does not have the economic clout or military power to pose much of a threat to China—except to that country’s still-brittle self-image.

Vietnam, the other member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which has stood up to China’s expansive claims over almost all of the South China Sea, including parts of what Vietnam calls the East Sea and parts of what the Philippines has taken to calling the West Philippine Sea, has a battle-tested military which fought China to a stalemate a generation ago. It may be in a better position to respond with the requisite force the next time China takes hostile action against its ships. But the real threat it poses is to the self-image of an awakened giant—a country straining at the seams, newly conscious of its leading status on the world stage, but deeply haunted by its century of humiliation.

We have seen the contradictions in the official Chinese position in the last several months, as the governing communist party struggled with a turbulent leadership transition. At the same time Beijing was trumpeting its new status as the world’s second largest economy, as the newest superpower, as the leader-in-waiting of the not-so-distant future, it was obsessively nursing its history-inflicted wounds and lashing out at its neighbors. So much for the official policy of a “harmonious rise.”

It even persuaded its closest Asean ally, Cambodia, into cutting off discussion of any South China Sea dispute at the summit of Asean heads of government a year ago. The unprecedented outcome—for the first time in Asean history, no communiqué was issued at the end of a leaders’ summit—angered both the Philippines and Vietnam, worried Singapore, and prompted Asean’s largest member, Indonesia, to embark on a diplomatic counteroffensive.

The backlash against China’s unexpected heavy-handedness in Phnom Penh may be said to have reached a peak when the Philippines dragged China to an international arbitration tribunal, under a provision of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Beijing has since refused to take part, but under international law, the tribunal can proceed.

This cannot be good for China, especially as it assumes greater international responsibilities. And, in fact, after the once-a-decade leadership transition finally cemented Xi Jinping’s grip on power, China started to scale down its rhetoric. Will this mean a change of mind on Beijing’s part, and participation in the arbitral proceeding? We doubt it, but China’s renewed readiness to discuss a much-anticipated “code of conduct” governing South China Sea relations with Asean leaders is a good sign, a signal that normalcy may be returning to Chinese diplomacy.

But a legally binding code of conduct is not only a means for the smaller nations in Southeast Asia to hold China to regular, rational, predictable behavior; it is also a means for China to hold Asean member-countries, including the Philippines, to an agreed set of rules regarding South China Sea disputes.

In other words, Beijing must learn to see the code of conduct, the idea of which it first agreed to in 2002, as working both ways. It will reassure Asean member-states that China will not act as the regional bully, while it will reassure Beijing that Asean countries following the code will not resurrect the ghosts of humiliation past.

It will not hurt the Philippine position if President Aquino pushes for the code of conduct precisely on these grounds: that it is not only binding on both sides, but a diplomatic victory that will speak loudly, stick or no stick.