West Philippine Sea international expedition drill sites
This was the observation by panelists during the World Economic Forum (WEF) East Asia on Friday, with four experts in foreign relations and security taking up the thorny issue of territorial rows across the seas surrounding the region.
"We didn't have these disputes before because the economies weren't growing as fast as they are now and they didn't need to harness those raw materials as much as they do now," said Parag Khanna, senior fellow at the New America Foundation, during the WEF arena session titled Asia Security Outlook.
Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of the US Pacific Command, agreed that the race to achieve staggering economic growth makes nations draw where their economic zones lie and those are dictated by whatever resources they need to fuel their development. He said the case with China now has been complicated by the "ambiguous" nine-dashed line.
"Overtime things have changed; you have to baseline somewhere and the US position is that you have to have the baseline and maintain status quo, which was the DMZ (demilitarized sone) and not move from that," the admiral said.
"But the code of conduct should have been here several years ago and it appears to be not closer here today. Underneath it, the status quo has changed," Locklear said.
Commercial approach
Khanna agreed that the code of conduct would help but he worried that the discourse focuses more on institutions such as ASEAN, ASEAN+3. The institutionalization of cooperation has to be backed up by some kind of concrete agreements like resource-sharing being executed now rather than waiting for a dialogue to emerge.
This was done by Russia and Norway and by Saudi and Kuwait by demilitarizing their contested territories and agreeing to resource-sharing. Thailand and Malaysia were locked in a territorial spat in the 1970s was resolved by agreeing to harvest resources from the same well.
Khanna said this could be made possible by involving, for example, countries' national oil companies through special purpose vehicles where they can collectively talk about revenue-sharing. The language of commerce can go around the controversial nine-dashed line.
"When national pride and sovereignty on these maps are at stake, it is incredibly difficult to arrive at some compromise. But if you take a shared commercial approach where everyone would enjoy the benefits for the short-term based on the needs, demand.," the WEF Global Young Leader said.
This code of conduct, however, is difficult to establish since in the first place, nations have different interpretations of international laws governing territories, said Shigeo Iwatani, secretary-general of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat.
"But if you look at the content of the international law, countries have different ideas [about it]. We should have more principles more concrete," the Japanese official said.
Stretegic partnerships are important, Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Laura del Rosario said but governments must not forget to engage its citizens in territorial issues as Asians are more educated and they cannot be left out of the discourse.
Commercial agreements not pushing through
In 2005, the Philippines, Vietnam and China signed a tripartite agreement among their respective state-run oil firms for joint marine exploration in South China Sea (which Manila now calls West Philippine Sea). The accord states that all signatories should abide by their respective government's commitment to fully implement the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the ASEAN-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.
The Philippine Supreme Court, however, was asked to nullify the deal as petitioners claimed it runs against the country's Constitution as it allows foreigners to exploit the natural resources under its jurisdiction. The case is still pending.
In the same vein, Philex Petroleum Corp, the majority-owner of the consortium set to drill at Recto Bank, which is within gas-rich Service Contract 72, has been trying to revive talks with China National Offshore Oil Co. Ltd. (CNOOC) for a joint exploration of the area. Because of the rising tensions between Manila and Beijing, the potential has not been brought to fruition and Philex has decided to drill exploration wells on its own.
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