Full speech by Surakiart

This is an excerpt of the opening remarks by APRC Chairman  Professor Dr Surakiart Sathirathai, who is a former Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.
This high-level seminar may be thought to be taking place just so timely on the appropriate date, albeit totally unintended, on the day where the Arbitral Tribunal between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China on the South China Sea will be delivering its decision. In fact the date of the seminar had been planned months before the announcement of the date of the arbitral award. The intention of this seminar is to further consolidate the perception on functional cooperation as a genuine way forward for peace and prosperity in the South China Sea. But as it happens, our deliberations today, coinciding with the arbitral award, could be very relevant and important for the future of the South China Sea.    

As we have heard in His Excellency Foreign Minister Saleumxay’s speech, as the current Chair of ASEAN, Lao PDR, will have to undertake a huge responsibility in the handling of the South China Sea dispute in the wake of the Arbitral award as 4 ASEAN countries have overlapping maritime claims with the People’s Republic of China in the South China Sea while Indonesia, a fifth ASEAN country, seems also to encounter some fishery jurisdiction in the vicinity. 

The ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers’ meeting, held recently in Kunming before the Summit to mark the 25th Anniversary of ASEAN-China relations in September also illustrated the difficult task in containing this particular issue. The ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting or AMM later this month in Vientiane will be the first ASEAN high level meetings after the Award deliberation. This is to be followed by the PMC, the meetings between ASEAN foreign ministers and their dialogue partner counterparts, including China and the US and the ARF which is ASEAN security regional forum. It is, therefore, so incumbent upon Lao PDR as ASEAN Chairman to ensure that this issue of South China Sea will not become a thorn in our relations both within ASEAN ourselves and with China and other dialogue partners. I have every confidence in the leadership of His Excellency Prime Minister Dr Thongloun Sisoulith and Foreign Minister Saleumxay in successfully steering ASEAN and the ASEAN-China relations in the wake of this Arbitral award.

Given the importance of the South China Sea to the peace and prosperity in this region and its importance to the development of the ASEAN Economic Community, the APRC has taken its decision to avail its resources through quiet diplomacy and academic exercises to help mitigate the South China Sea disputes and avoid possible armed and military encounters in these troubled waters. I myself have travelled and held many talks and discussions with foreign ministers and leaders in all the claimant states and ASEAN non-claimant states to canvass on the idea of functional cooperation as a plausible peaceful solution for the South China Sea. 

As part of these endeavours, in July 2014, in conjunction with Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies or Myanmar ISIS, APRC organized a seminar on Functional Cooperation in the South China Sea. All the expert participants at that seminar agreed that functional cooperation could be a way forward. It has been APRC’s strong conviction all along that the maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea, like in several other areas in the world will never be resolved speedily through negotiations.  But the South China Sea issue should not be allowed to disturb the promise for further stability and the growing prosperity that we have worked tirelessly to achieve in Asia, or further jeopardise or politicize ongoing efforts toward resolution. We have a responsibility to make sure the dispute does not harm the realization of the ASEAN Community. We have a responsibility to make sure the dispute does not disturb ongoing negotiations of the RCEP, our relationship with China and indeed ASEAN itself. 

The Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) may have played certain roles towards averting any military actions by claimant states. And the on-going ASEAN efforts to conclude the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea may need to find a fruitful solution. But evidently, the South China Sea remains largely the sea of much troubled waters. Therefore, the APRC believes that attempts to try to put in place functional cooperation between each pair of claimant states can serve as a genuine effort for all parties to look for common interests and cooperative uses of the disputed areas and their natural resources while the questions of sovereignty negotiations may continue on the parallel tracks. Notwithstanding this afternoon arbitral award, we are of the view that both the general principles of international law and the provisions of UNCLOS 1982 provide legal basis for joint development arrangements between disputed parties while parties remain unable to reach a maritime delimitation agreement. Examples are abundant in several parts of the world where this has been the case. The Thai-Malaysian Joint Development Area Agreement for the joint exploration and exploitation of oil and gas in the yet to be delimited southern part of the Gulf of Thailand, now in operation for almost 40 years, also stands as a testimony to the use of functional cooperation in the absence of agreed maritime boundary. 

More recently, Malaysia and Vietnam signed an MOU for oil and gas exploration and development in 1992. Australia and Timor Leste signed the Timor Sea Treaty which established the Joint Petroleum Development Area between both countries. And indeed in the early 2000s, China and Vietnam together delimited their boundary and signed an agreement for a joint fishing area in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Outside of Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea agreed in 1974 on joint development of the southern part of their continental shelf and we can also take lessons from the Antarctic Treaty, and similar successful functional cooperation models in the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean, and in the North Sea in the Atlantic Ocean. 

Functional cooperation thus emerges as a mechanism for cooperation and peace which can sit above and catalyze the necessary cooperation and trust required to commit to disentangle the differences in the South China Sea. 

It may be granted that the phrase functional cooperation may be too vague. Suffice it to say though that functional cooperation constitutes any joint development cooperation in any field that each pair of claimant states have enough comfort level to agree upon. It is also my humble suggestion that ASEAN may even try to set up an EPG or an eminent persons group whose task is to look into all the possible modalities of functional cooperation that could be operational in the various cases of disputed areas in the South China Sea. Within a given period of time the EPG shall report back to ASEAN. At least in this manner, it can be said that there is now an ongoing interim effort to work on the functional cooperation in the South China Sea. The final outcome and acceptance to any of the EPG recommendations would be entirely up to the consideration of the claimant parties concerned.

Functional cooperation is not a solution in itself. But it provides another track to preserve peace and avert future armed confrontations. It can run parallel with sovereignty negotiations and the attempts to conclude the COC. Functional cooperation dialogue could become a confidence building measures for the other 2 parallel tracks as well. 

This exercise is also in compliance with the DOC where under Article 6, pending a comprehensive and durable settlement of the disputes, the Parties concerned may explore or undertake cooperative activities.  Besides, the DOC also provides for the possibility of setting up such an EPG.

 

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Continuing the current status quo is unsustainable. 

 

Lack of progress, muddling through or continuing the current stand-off will cause all sides to dig-in further to consolidate their already entrenched positions. It would further fuel the vicious cycle of ultra-national narratives. It would hinder an amicable solution to the dispute and threaten to increase the growing brinkmanship at sea. 

 

Thus, collectively it is time for all of us to step back and to take stock of where we are and what we want to achieve moving forward. The situation at sea must be de-politicized, cooled down in order for us to build a shared vision for cooperation moving forward. 

There is no one single comprehensive solution for a complex situation, but functional cooperation offers that way forward through cooperation. Areas for cooperation can range from fishery cooperation, management of sustainable fisheries, joint scientific research, environmental protection, research on marine life, joint investment ventures, resource exploration and exploitation, humanitarian and disaster relief, establishment of protected marine nature reserves, joint management of maritime navigation, and joint tourism cooperation. In all these areas, any cooperation will become the benefit of the people and the livelihood of people of all countries.  It also fits with provisions in UNCLOS that allow "provisional arrangements of a practical nature."

 

That is why the APRC decided to organize today’s High-level seminar entitled, “ Functional Cooperation : A Move for Peace and Prosperity in the South China Sea” to continue to reiterate our conviction, after our seminar in Yangon two years ago, that functional cooperation between claimant states in the South China Sea should be given a chance as a move for peace and prosperity. 

Functional cooperation is not the final solution to the disputes. Functional cooperation may not solve the overlapping claims and sovereignty. Functional cooperation may not eliminate all the differences between claimant states over the Spratlys and Paracels. The benefits of functional cooperation do not focus on the geopolitical statehood or governments. But to put in place functional cooperation that is acceptable by claimant states, at least, is to allow all sides, states and people alike, to reap some benefits from peace and the resources therein and create a less confrontational atmosphere between claimant states.  

Today’s seminar is attended by a number of APRC Council Members and I am particularly grateful for the precious participation of His Excellency Former Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley of Bhutan, His Excellency Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, former Foreign Minister of Malaysia  and His Excellency Former President of Timor Leste, Excellency Jose Ramos-Horta, who will be with us this afternoon. I also would like to welcome all other participants and speakers who are all experts in the field. I am certain that their deliberations will enrich our conviction to find a peaceful way forward for the South China Sea issue.  

It is my fervent hope that all of us here today share the same aspiration that the South China Sea, whatever it is called by its littoral states, the Sea that is semi enclosed by all the ASEAN maritime members, ought to be given a chance to turn from the sea of conflicts into the sea of cooperation.

It is also heartening that no matter the outcome of the Arbitration Award at The Hague in the afternoon, in the past week the new Philippines Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay announced that President Duterte’s administration would seek to pursue joint development in areas of overlapping economic zone claims with China. This is an encouraging early sign and hopefully it is seen by all sides as a first step towards more concrete cooperation. 

In the wake of the Arbitration Award, it is time for parties to make sure that no military and armed intervention would follow. Functional cooperation agreements at the early stage from now on will help secure the peace of the South China Sea in the short and medium term, and ensure stability, growth and prosperity in the ASEAN Community and East Asia as a whole in the long term. 

The South China Sea is vast and rich with the promise of resources and fisheries, and is one of the most frequently sailed passages on earth, carrying more than half of the world’s merchant fleet tonnage. Yet, in so many ways, its wealth is fast becoming a curse. Geo-politics and competition threaten to upend the rise to prosperity we have all enjoyed in East Asia. 

Functional cooperation can build confidence, improve the atmosphere and increase the comfort levels needed before claims on sovereignty can be discussed. No matter our standpoint, no one here wants to see the South China Sea crumble into conflict. 

Thus ladies and gentlemen, it is incumbent on us to transform the growing calls for functional cooperation and joint development into concrete solutions for the region, to ensure that our moves are not toward conflict and brinkmanship, but toward peace and security for all in the South China Sea, a sea of cooperation and prosperity.

Whatever the decision of the Arbitral award this afternoon would be, I hope it should be treated as a starting point for alternative, creative, constructive and friendly dialogue between ASEAN and China cooperation for peace and prosperity in the region.

Thank you for your kind attention.