GUANGZHOU, China: I observed with interest over the past weeks that there have been numerous reported encounters between the maritime vessels of the Philippines and China in and around their disputed territorial waters in the South China Sea. The latter geographical term is used here as it is the conventional international designation of the maritime stretch, bearing in mind it is referred to as the West Philippine Sea and South Sea by the Philippines and China, respectively.
These incidents are but the latest eruptions along the series of longstanding territorial and sovereignty disputes among various littoral jurisdictions around the South China Sea involving overlapping claims. There have been a number of bilateral and multilateral efforts aiming to resolve or at least not worsen the ensuing confrontations between the interested parties. The adoption of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties on the South China Sea (DOC) near the beginning of this century was vastly touted to be the first positive step to bring about some semblance of harmony to the otherwise tense situation in and around the South China Sea. But two decades onward, the march toward a more rigorous Code of Conduct of Parties on the South China Sea (COC) could at best be described as "slow and steady," or more realistically as carefully negotiating around the obstacles.
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