Beijing declared milestone on South China Sea Code of Conduct. Is it progress or a tactic?

Name: History, money and military: why the South China Sea is so important to Beijing
Uploaded: 2025-04-08T01:00:14.000Z
Duration: 9 min 23 s
Description: History, money and military: why the South China Sea is so important to Beijing

In all likelihood, the negotiations will be kicked further down the road just as in the past, analyst says

Reading Time:7 minutes

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Shi Jiangtao

Published: 9:00am, 8 Apr 2025

For nearly 30 years, China and Southeast Asian nations have wrestled to craft a set of rules to tame persistent tensions in the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest and most contested waterways.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi declared a milestone last month when announcing the completion of the third reading of the long-awaited Code of Conduct (COC), adding to hopes that Malaysia’s Asean chairmanship this year could speed up the protracted negotiations ahead of a 2026 deadline.

However, observers caution that diplomatic talk aside, there appears to have been few actual gains on contentious sticking points, with core disputes lingering over enforcement mechanisms, geographic scope, legal status and the role of external powers.

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History, money and military: why the South China Sea is so important to Beijing

A breakthrough or rapid resolution was unlikely, they said, pointing to the increasingly tense and violent territorial dispute and superpower stand-offs in the busy waterway, marked by heightened maritime tensions and a recent war of words between Beijing and the US-led West.

The Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations issued an unusually tough statement last month, accusing China of “illicit, provocative, coercive and dangerous actions” endangering maritime security, such as “land reclamations and building of outposts, as well as their use for military purposes”.

It came shortly after Wang labelled Manila’s frequent maritime frictions with Beijing “a shadow play” controlled by the US and other Western powers, and accused the US of stoking “big power rivalry” by meddling in Asia.

“Asia is where China calls home and builds its future. It is also the common home for China and fellow Asian countries,” the Chinese foreign minister said on March 7 at his annual press conference on the sidelines of Beijing’s annual legislative meetings.

“Asia is not an arena for big power rivalry,” he added.