We Might Finally See a South China Sea Code of Conduct as DFA Puts Talks at 70 Percent
DFA’s Dominic Xavier Imperial said ASEAN and China negotiators still have 30 percent to settle, with no estimate of meetings needed by year-end.
by JV Ordoñez
Published on Nov 13, 2026
The Philippines has been trying to enforce a decade-old arbitral victory via the United Nations-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration amid Beijing's belligerent behavior in the resource-rich South China Sea but has failed to do so due to the superpower's vast fishing fleet and coast guard ships.
After 24 years after the code of conduct in the waterway had been first affirmed, the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department now says that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China has finished about 70 percent of negotiations on a code of conduct, a sliver of hope for progress in easing tensions in the disputed seas.
“At the moment, we’re seeing a 70 percent completion of the negotiations, so we are at that stage,” according to DFA Spokesperson for ASEAN Affairs Dominic Xavier Imperial, speaking Friday at the first official press briefing of the 49th ASEAN Summit.
“[L]ooking at the remaining 30 percent, that will be up to our negotiators on how they will be able to complete that,” according to Imperial, who had no estimate of how many meetings the deadline will take and could not name the provisions still in dispute.
Verbal Skimishes Over the Seas
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has said repeatedly that the Philippines’ ASEAN chairship intends to finalize the Code of Conduct by year-end.
The president has been trying to persuade his neighbors like Malaysia and Vietnam, to hold talks on a code of conduct for behavior in the South China Sea while pursuing a broader regional pact with Beijing
“From the Philippine side, what we want to ensure is that the CoC will guide the behavior of all parties in the South China Sea, and we are also pushing for the rights of third parties to be respected even if they’re not part of the negotiation,” according to Imperial.
Tensions have been heating up between Manila and Beijing after Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. was handed a handwritten note on China’s rejection of the 2016 ruling while answering a question onstage at the Seoul Defense Dialogue on September 8. Yonhap, citing forum organizers, reported that the note came from a military attaché at the Chinese Embassy in Seoul and that a staffer mistook it for a message from the Philippine delegation.
Teodoro read it aloud to the audience. “Perhaps basic decency and behavior is what China needs to do,” according to Teodoro, who said he would keep the paper as “a memento of how desperate China is.”
In late October, China’s defense ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang accused “a certain self-serving politician” of using the Philippines’ ASEAN chairmanship to block Beijing’s participation in the ASEAN defense talks in Cebu, a reference to a local newspaper article that appeared to be alluding to the defense chief. Teodoro said the claim was China’s position, not ASEAN’s.
Teodoro, whom China sanctioned earlier this year, later called China a “troublemaker” in the region. “If we want to use force, we may easily win,” according to China’s ambassador to the Philippines. Marcos said the statement sounded like a threat, and several lawmakers called for the ambassador’s expulsion.
On November 3, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro in a phone call that “malicious interference” from certain Filipino politicians was straining relations and that Manila should be careful with its words and actions on the South China Sea, according to China’s Foreign Ministry. Lazaro described the call as “frank and constructive.”
Besides the two countries, other nations such as Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam have overlapping claims to parts of the South China Sea.
Beijing insists on its claims derived from 1940s maps, which it sees as its historical claim over the waterway that sees more than $3 trillion worth of global trade flow through it.
In 2024, Marcos said that the Philippines would look into exploring gas reserves in non-conflict areas within the country's exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea even amidst China's aggression in the waterway.
The president noted that talks with China on oil and gas exploration in the strategic waterway have not progressed due to disagreements on which areas fall within their respective territories.
The State of ASEAN and the Elusive Task of Keeping the Peace
This time last year, Timor-Leste formally joined the fold of the economic and reigonal bloc during a ceremony in Malaysia a few months before Manila took ASEAN chairmanship.
East Timor is the 11th member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which expands the strong regional market of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand to a whopping 680 million people.
The entry comes against the volatile backdrop of growing uncertainties and geopolitical tensions; it's prudent to take a moment to see what this new addition to the regional bloc means for the Philippines, which seeks to pursue a free and peaceful Indo-Pacific and steady multilateral economic partnerships.
A perennial territorial tussle between China and the Philippines, who has been at each other’s throats over the strategic and resource-filled South China Sea after repeated skirmishes at disputed features located in the waterway over the past few years.
The Hague-based tribunal in 2016 voided China’s sweeping claims of over 80 percent of the South China Sea for having no legal basis. But this hasn’t stopped Beijing from building manmade islands on a few submerged features in the strategic sea, constructing runways, hangars, radar systems, and ports to maintain the country’s strong naval presence in the waterway.
Marcos had urged his ASEAN partners to find a consensus in dealing with issues in the South China Sea, which he called “disparate situations that the different member states are operating under.”
Talks about a code of conduct for behavior in the South China Sea date back to 2002, when the regional bloc and China committed to crafting a code of conduct and a framework to deter conflict through diplomatic means in the waterway, but progress has stalled over the years.
"From the Philippine side, what we want to ensure is that the CoC will guide the behavior of all parties in the South China Sea and we are also pushing for the rights of third parties to be respected even if they’re not part of the negotiation,” according to the DFA spokesperson.
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