"Declaration of the South China Sea" is the cornerstone of protecting the South China Sea and Ping An

Author:Bianhai Time:2022.06.16

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the "Declaration of the South China Sea". The "Declaration" was signed in Phnom Penh in Cambodia in 2002. It is the first political document to deal with the South China Sea issue at the regional level of China and ASEAN countries. Looking back at the twenty years, although the South China Sea has occasional waves, it has maintained a peaceful and stable situation. Among them, the role of the Declaration is the key.

After the end of the Cold War, the relationship between the Asia -Pacific countries eased, and cooperation and development became the main tone of the region. With the development of China's relations with Southeast Asian countries entering the fast lane, all parties have become more and more aware of that only the right way out of the way out of controversy, seeking same differences, dialogue and negotiation, and win -win cooperation. The achievements and follow -up implementation of the "Declaration" are the true portrayal of the continuous development of relations between China and ASEAN countries.

The Declaration builds a foundation for mutual trust in China and ASEAN countries. The signing of the Declaration has achieved a major leap from scratch to deal with the South China Sea issue, which has effectively enhanced the political mutual trust between regional countries, laying a solid foundation for the deep development of the ASEAN relations and comprehensively upgrading. The purpose, principles and specific methods established by the Declaration represent the largest consensus and efforts of the regional country, and have repeatedly confirmed in joint documents such as joint statements and action plans issued by China and ASEAN countries for many years. The Declaration itself has strong political binding and standardized, and has become the basic follow and basis for all parties to deal with the South China Sea issue.

The Declaration pointed out the basic path to deal with disputes in the South China Sea. Article 4 of the Declaration clearly stipulates that directly related sovereignty countries can resolve disputes in territorial and jurisdiction through friendly negotiations and negotiations through friendly consultations and negotiations. Under the guidance of the Declaration, China and the Philippines and Vietnam have established a bilateral negotiation mechanism in the South China Sea, respectively, and maintain a close communication dialogue with countries such as Malaysia and Brunei. In 2016, the Philippines made a farce of the South China Sea arbitration, which directly challenged Article 4 of the Declaration, causing China to resolutely oppose strong dissatisfaction with regional countries. Soon after the illegal ruling was promulgated, the foreign ministers of China and ASEAN countries published the "Comprehensive and Effective Implementation of the" Declaration> Joint Statement ", which guided the South China Sea issue to return to the right track.

The Declaration creates a guidelines for self -restraint in the parties. Article 5 of the Declaration requires all parties to maintain self -restraint, and does not adopt actions that make disputes, expand, and affect peace and stability. Take the living actions and deal with each other's differences in constructive ways. It is necessary to prohibit the new islands and reefs, which effectively prevent the island reef problems from getting out of control and avoiding the upgrading of the situation in the South China Sea. Recently, at the Nanhai Forum held in Boao, regional scholars generally affirmed the forward -looking nature of the Declaration and believed that it had guarded the crisis.

The Declaration has established an important platform for pragmatic cooperation at sea. The Declaration encourages all parties to strengthen military dialogue, based on voluntary notification of military exercises, and clearly strengthen pragmatic cooperation in the areas of marine environmental protection, marine scientific research, navigation and traffic safety, search and assistance, and cracking down on transnational crimes. Over the years, under the implementation of the "Declaration" framework, all parties have achieved rich results of cooperation, reached a declaration of environmental cooperation leaders, established a hotline platform for emergency diplomatic officials at sea, and promoted the application of the "Unexpected Rules on Maritime" in the South China Sea. A series of discussions, training and deductive programs such as marine disaster prevention and mitigation, marine ecological environment and monitoring, marine scientific research, and cooperation of maritime law enforcement agencies.

Times are changing and the situation is developing. To achieve long -term stability in the South China Sea, the "toolbox" that needs to further enrich regional rules. The "Declaration" stipulates that all parties work on the basis of negotiation and work on the basis of the "Code of Conduct" in the South China Sea. This has established goals and pointed out the direction for improving the establishment of the South China Sea. Since China and ASEAN countries launched the "Guidelines" in 2013, they have made positive progress. Through consultations, all parties further increased their credit and interpretation, condensed consensus, and accelerated the process of formulating the "guidelines". At the same time, the consultation itself is also part of the construction of South China Sea trust measures. The "Guidelines" reached in the future will be more substantial on the basis of the Declaration, and better guide regional countries to carry out dialogue cooperation, and become an upgraded version and enhanced version of the Declaration.

For a period of time, the outside world has a very loud argument, thinking that the Convention on the United Nations Marine Law can "cover the world" is a legal basis for solving all marine issues. The importance of the Convention is beyond doubt. However, the limitation of the era of the Convention is destined to be not all of the Ocean Law. It is particularly important that the Convention does not deal with the issue of belonging to the islands and reefs, and the core of the South China Sea issue is the dispute over island and reef territory. The "Declaration" and the "standards" in the future are important practices for exploring the Convention and the application of general international law in the region. The "Declaration" and "criteria" cover all aspects of the South China Sea issue. It is properly surpassed the Convention on the Convention on Maritime disputes, maintaining self -restraint, and strengthening military trust measures. In this sense, the "Declaration" and "criteria" not only serve the peace and stability of the region, but also the rich and development of modern marine law.

The achievement and implementation of the Declaration condenses the valuable experience of regional countries to deal with arduous and complex issues. As long as we support the banner of the Declaration, firm confidence, maintain a concentration, uphold the concept of the community of destiny, and hold the key to the dialogue and cooperation, we will definitely reach a high -quality "standard" as soon as possible to build the South China Sea into the sea of peace and friendship. The sea of cooperation. (The author is an observer of international issues)