US Vice President Kamala Harris launched a new broadside against China as she ended her Southeast Asian tour in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday, warning the United States would continue to push back against Beijing’s claims in disputed Asian waters.
The comments came on the final day of a regional trip in which Washington has sought to reset relations in Asia after the turbulent Donald Trump years and stress its commitment to Southeast Asian allies.
During the trip, Harris had already accused Beijing twice of bullying its neighbors in the resource-rich South China Sea—and on Thursday she again took aim at the Asian giant.
“We’re going to speak up when there are actions that Beijing takes that threaten the rules-based international order… such as activity in the South China Sea,” Harris said.
“Freedom of navigation… is a vital issue for this region.”
This developed as former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to be vigilant of China’s alleged attempt to undermine the Philippines’ arbitral win on the South China Sea.
ASEAN and China are crafting a Code of Conduct (COC) to manage tensions in the disputed waters.
Speaking in a virtual lecture, Del Rosario accused China of wanting to ensure that the COC’s content would “supplant” the 2016 arbitral award to preserve its 9-dash line claim in the disputed waters.
If this happens, the Philippines will no longer be able to invoke the landmark ruling and all gains from the win “will be wasted” in favor of China’s expansionist goals, said the retired diplomat.
But Harris has instead emphasized American commitment to the region by opening a Southeast Asia branch of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Hanoi and donating a million COVID-19 vaccines to Vietnam.
“In the years ahead we will be back time and time again,” she told journalists Thursday.
Harris insisted Thursday that the US did “not seek conflict” with Beijing, but it would “do what we can to make sure that we stay committed to our partners” on issues such as the South China Sea.
Four Southeast Asian states have competing claims over the waterway through which trillions of dollars in shipping trade passes annually.
China has been accused of deploying military hardware including anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles there and ignored a 2016 international tribunal decision that rejected its historical claim over most of the waters.
In Singapore, Harris said Beijing “continues to coerce, to intimidate”
in the South China Sea — prompting China to shoot back that the US was guilty of its own “bullying, hegemonic behavior.”
The following day Harris warned the US would “find new ways to pressure Beijing.”
Harris is the latest top official from President Joe Biden’s team to visit the region to reassure allies of its steadfastness.
The 2016 ruling invalidated China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea based on historic rights. It was during Del Rosario’s tenure at the Philippine foreign ministry that Manila sought an arbitration against China under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“With regard to the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, the Philippines must be vigilant. ASEAN, too, must be collectively vigilant,” Del Rosario said in Thursday’s lecture.
“We must prevent China from attaining its goal, supplant and undermine the 2016 ruling rendered by UNCLOS. ASEAN must ensure that it should not allow the misuse of the Code of Conduct to undermine the 2016 arbitral ruling,” he added.
Del Rosario said China appears to be rushing the conclusion of the COC after the 2016 ruling, contrary to its past behavior of delaying talks.
The 10-member ASEAN and China hope to conclude discussions on the COC next year, a diplomatic source had said.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Vietnam are the bloc’s members that have overlapping claims with China and Taiwan in the South China Sea.
According to Del Rosario, China agreed to the non-binding 2002 Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea only after it has seized Mischief Reef as a way of legitimizing the status quo.
Paragraph 5 of the DOC states that the parties agree to exercise “self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.”
“At this point, because China’s expansionist cause has not been completed, China would only agree to a non-binding Declaration of Conduct rather than a legally binding code of conduct,” Del Rosario said.
For him, the 2016 ruling served as a “framework in line with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for ASEAN to attain durable peace and stability” in the South China Sea “anchored on the rule of law.”
It benefits not only the Philippines but all stakeholders in the South China Sea, said Del Rosario, pointing out that the ruling affirms that the Philippines has an exclusive economic zone “that must be respected by China” and other coastal states must have the same entitlement.
He said ASEAN’s credibility and centrality are at stake at the negotiations for the COC, and the grouping must not allow itself to be a “rubber stamp” to Beijing’s expansionist claims.
Maritime law expert Jay Batongbacal, Director of the UP Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, proposed that ASEAN first come up with a common position and common goals for the COC negotiation before talking to China.
If this is not possible, he said, a sub-ASEAN process should allow the claimant countries to come up with a common position especially if the non-claimants are the ones “hindering” the reaching of agreements.
Instead of a comprehensive COC, a set of agreements that address incidents at sea may be more productive, which will be based on how the disputes and relationship of countries “evolve,” Batongbacal said.
As outgoing Country Coordinator of the COC negotiations, the Philippines earlier this month reported that the Preamble for the COC had been “provisionally agreed on” by the parties.
The Philippines has already turned over the role of Country Coordinator for negotiations on the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea to Myanmar.
ASEAN and China commenced formal talks on the COC in 2018.