Philippine leadership puts ASEAN at center of South China Sea rivalry
The U.S. Navy’s Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington is shown anchored in the waters of Manila Bay, Philippines, in July. The ship was making a a scheduled port visit after its recent patrol in the disputed South China Sea. File Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA
Jan. 8 (UPI) — As the Philippines takes over the rotating Association of Southeast Asian Nations chair in 2026, it will do so at a moment of sharpened maritime tension and narrowing diplomatic patience in the South China Sea.
Manila has made clear it intends to prioritize two parallel initiatives that reflect the region’s evolving reality: renewed efforts to finalize a legally binding code of conduct with China and a dramatic expansion of U.S.-Philippines military cooperation, with more than 500 joint activities planned for the year.
Taken together, the dual-track strategy underscores how Southeast Asia’s maritime order is being reshaped. Diplomacy remains essential, but it is increasingly paired with deterrence and preparedness, reflecting a regional judgment that rules alone are insufficient without the capacity to defend them.
The Philippines is moving to fast-track a binding code of conduct after decades of inconclusive talks, using its ASEAN chairmanship to push for enforceable rules rather than voluntary guidelines.
“The Philippines will push for a binding COC at the same time continue to strengthen defense ties with the United States, as well as other partners like Japan, Australia and others,” said Lucio Pitlo III, a foreign affairs and security analyst at Asia-Pacific Pathways for Progress Foundation.
Yet, the limits of ASEAN consensus diplomacy remain evident. Member states hold differing threat perceptions and economic dependencies, while China has resisted provisions that could constrain its operational flexibility or legitimize external involvement.
Analysts have argued that, with Manila chairing, a comprehensive agreement is unlikely to be concluded in 2026 given the temperature of China-Philippines tensions – though the chair can still steer narrower confidence-building steps and agenda-setting wins.
“I would not expect a binding code of conduct in the South China Sea to materialize regardless of who is ASEAN Chair,” said Hunter Marston, senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic & International Studies.
As ASEAN chair in 2026, Manila is expected to press for a more active multilateral role in managing South China Sea disputes, seeking to use regional dialogue to dampen tensions when incidents erupt.
Philippine officials, however, are also likely to lean more heavily on bilateral channels with Beijing to manage flashpoints in real time. Chief among them is the Philippines-China Bilateral Consultative Mechanism, a forum designed to contain maritime flare-ups before they escalate into broader diplomatic or security crises, reflecting Manila’s effort to balance regional solidarity with the practical need for direct engagement with China.
Even so, chairmanship confers agenda-setting power. Manila can steer negotiations toward narrower but meaningful gains, such as clearer incident-avoidance protocols, standardized communications between maritime forces and provisions that explicitly address coast guards and maritime militias, which are now central actors in most confrontations.
In that sense, 2026 may be less about delivering a final document than about clarifying whether a credible code of conduct remains politically attainable.
“The progress on CoC isn’t necessarily hinged heavily on who holds the ASEAN chairmanship, though in some ways the ASEAN member state holding onto this position might influence or shape the direction it takes,” said Colin Koh, senior fellow of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
That diplomatic push unfolds against a backdrop of persistent friction at sea. Confrontations near Second Thomas Shoal, Sabina Shoal and other contested features have increasingly involved water cannons, ramming incidents and aggressive maneuvering, often targeting Philippine resupply missions and civilian fishing vessels.
Each episode reinforces Manila’s view that restraint has not been reciprocated, and that negotiations conducted without leverage risk entrenching, rather than moderating, coercive behavior.
This is where the second pillar of the Philippines’ 2026 strategy becomes decisive. Plans for more than 500 U.S.-Philippines joint military activities represent a significant escalation in tempo and scope, even in the absence of a single marquee exercise.
The schedule encompasses everything from staff-level planning and logistics coordination to maritime domain awareness, coastal defense drills and repeated operational rehearsals across air, land and sea domains.
“Having the Philippines as chairman, particularly under the U.S. friendly Marcos administration, is useful to the U.S. agenda in the region,” said Elizabeth Larus, adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Forum.
She also underscored the critical importance of Trump-Marcos security accord in preventing China from displacing the United States as the dominant maritime power in the region.
The scale of this cooperation carries implications that extend well beyond symbolism. A Philippine maritime force that trains continuously with U.S. counterparts becomes harder to coerce at sea, raising the operational and political costs of gray-zone pressure in contested waters. In a region where presence, response time and narrative control often determine outcomes, that shift matters.
“China is likely to emphasize the Philippine defense cooperation with the United States over a Philippine-led ASEAN agenda that emphasizes legal norms and [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea],” said Khang Vu, a visiting scholar in political science at Boston College.
The volume of combined activities also accelerates alliance integration in less visible but more consequential ways. Regular staff talks, shared surveillance practices and logistics planning embed interoperability as a standing condition rather than a crisis response.
For regional observers, the message is unmistakable: U.S.-Philippines security cooperation is becoming structural, not episodic, and is likely to endure regardless of short-term political fluctuations.
By pairing expanded readiness with a renewed push for a binding code of conduct, Manila also is reframing diplomacy. The Philippines is signaling to ASEAN partners that engagement with China should proceed from a position of resilience, not restraint alone.
In practice, this reflects a broader regional reassessment that negotiations over the South China Sea will only carry weight if backed by credible capacity to resist coercion when rules are tested.
For ASEAN, the Philippine chairmanship will test the concept of “ASEAN centrality” under far less forgiving conditions than in previous decades.
While ASEAN remains indispensable as a diplomatic convener, the region’s most consequential security dynamics increasingly run through alliances and mini-lateral arrangements rather than consensus forums. The challenge for Manila will be to preserve ASEAN’s relevance without pretending that diplomacy alone can manage today’s risks.
Maritime relations in 2026 will be defined less by stability than by tempo, with a surge in patrols, surveillance flights and military exercises raising the risk of miscalculation and making clear rules of engagement and crisis hotlines more critical than ever.
At the same time, legitimacy at sea is becoming as important as capability. Each encounter is now fought on two fronts: on the water and in the information space.
Competing claims of lawful defense versus provocation, sovereign rights versus external interference, shape international perceptions and diplomatic alignments. How states behave during routine encounters may ultimately matter as much as formal agreements signed at the negotiating table.
The Philippines’ 2026 approach signals that the era of quiet accommodation in the South China Sea is over, with Manila pressing for binding rules while bolstering its military posture.
Whether that strategy stabilizes the region will depend on whether China and other regional actors are willing to translate pledges of restraint into behavior at sea, but the Philippine chairmanship already is set to shape how maritime order is contested in the years ahead.
