Philippine Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo urged regional neighbors Monday to stand together more strongly in upholding the rule of law in the South China Sea, where China is forcefully pursuing territorial claims in conflict with other nations.

Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines Enrique A Manalo addresses a forum on maritime cooperation at the ASEAN Special Summit, in Melbourne, Monday, March 04, 2024.

Manalo spoke at a forum on maritime cooperation on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian leaders’ summit in the Australian city of Melbourne at which increasingly assertive moves by China is high on the agenda.

Manalo referred to the Philippines’ victory over China in a 2016 arbitration ruling in The Hague, Netherlands, that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea. China did not accept the ruling.

Manalo said the Philippines pursued the case to uphold the rule of law and to promote the peaceful settlement of such disputes.

“The shared stewardship of the seas and oceans in the region behooves us to unite in preserving the primacy of international law so we can ensure equitable and sustainable outcomes for all,” he said.

From left to right, Philippine's President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, head of Thailand's delegation Sarun Charoensuwan, Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Laos' Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, and East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao hold hands as they pose for a family photo during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia Summit, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023. The ASEAN-Australia Special Summit that starts in Melbourne on Monday, March 4, 2024, marks 50 years since Australia became the first official partner of the Asian bloc.

“It also calls for us to stand firmly together in opposing actions that contradict or are inconsistent with international law,” he added.

China claims sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea, which is one of the world’s most crucial waterways for shipping. That has put it at odds with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, which all maintain claims to islands, reefs and undersea resources in the region.

Manalo called for regional neighbors to uphold cooperation over confrontation and diplomacy over the threatened use of force.

“For the South China Sea and the seas and oceans of the Indo-Pacific to be unifying domains of peace, stability and prosperity, we need to gather more strongly around the collective responsibility as well as a shared sense of stewardship,” he said.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong echoed Manalo’s comments, saying the nine member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations represented at the Melbourne summit need to “nuture and protect agreed rules, uphold international law, prevent conflict and build strategic trust.”

“Shared prosperity is an incentive to maintain peace, yet it is not enough to guarantee peace. The stakes are clear,” Wong said.

“We know that a major conflict in our region would be devastating to our communities and economies, as the terrible conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have shown,“ she added.

She announced that Australia would spend 40 million Australian dollars ($26 million) on enhancing its maritime partnerships in the region aimed at both security and prosperity.

Australia and the Philippines, conducted joint sea and air patrols in the South China Sea for the first time in November.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Manalo in December that China will maintain military pressure on the Philippines in the South China Sea.

Wang “warned that if the Philippine side misjudges the situation, goes its own way, or even colludes with ill-intentioned external forces to continue to stir up troubles, China will defend its rights in accordance with law and respond resolutely,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Wang’s comments followed China’s mobilization of its coast guard and maritime militia to block Philippine supply missions to support its soldiers and fishermen.

China and Myanmar likely to be high on the agenda when Southeast Asian leaders meet in Australia

 An increasingly assertive China and a humanitarian crisis in Myanmar are likely to be high on the agenda when Southeast Asian leaders meet in Australia for a rare summit this week.

The ASEAN-Australia Special Summit that starts in Melbourne on Monday marks 50 years since Australia became the first official partner of the Asian bloc.

Leaders of nine of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations are expected to attend the three-day summit, with Myanmar excluded from political representation over its failure to stem violence in that country since a military junta seized control in 2021. East Timor’s leader has been invited as an official ASEAN observer and Australian Prime Anthony Albanese invited his New Zealand counterpart to Melbourne to meet regional leaders.

“Australia sees ASEAN at the center of a stable, peaceful and prosperous region,” Albanese said in a statement on Friday.

“Strengthening our relationship ensures our shared future prosperity and security,” he added.

Australia has hosted ASEAN leaders once before in Sydney in 2018. The leaders issued a statement with the host country then that called for a code of conduct covering the contested waters of the South China Sea, where China has become increasingly assertive over its competing territorial claims with a number of ASEAN countries.

Australia and the Philippines, an ASEAN member, conducted joint sea and air patrols in the South China Sea for the first time in November last year.

Also in November, Australia proposed to ASEAN members that they declare in a joint statement at the end of the Melbourne summit their support for the 2016 arbitration ruling in The Hague in favor of the Philippines that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea, Australian Broadcasting Corp said in December. China has rejected that ruling.

Other ASEAN countries with territorial claims in conflict with China are Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.

China's increasingly assertive posture in the South China Sea and violence in Myanmar topped a meeting of ASEAN diplomats in January in Laos, the group's poorest nation, which has taken over the bloc's rotating leadership this year.

International Crisis Group's Asia program deputy director Huong Le Thu, who is attending the summit in Australia, said ASEAN has always been divided over how to approach China, with each member nation maintaining a unique bilateral relationship with the economic giant.

“I don’t see the commonality of one approach being feasible. They are working out the best way to manage this power asymmetry that they have with China,” Le Thu said.

The humanitarian crisis in Myanmar that hangs over the summit challenges ASEAN’s credibility as an organization, she said.

“It poses the question for its existence in the first place: why the countries’ governments in the region get together and what is the purpose of this intergovernmental institution if it cannot act on the internal crisis that effects its own organization and the region?” Le Thu said.

Around 200 protesters, mostly from the Myanmar diaspora, demonstrated outside the summit on Monday morning demanding the restoration of democracy in Myanmar and that ASEAN not engage with the country’s military leaders.

Australia, as the summit host, is focused on maritime cooperation, economic ties, climate change and clean energy.

Melissa Conley Tyler, executive director of the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defense Dialogue think tank, expects leaders will focus on what they share in common rather than their differences on issues such as China and Myanmar.

“The focus is very much going to be on how do Australia and the ASEAN countries work together to create a region where we want to live?” said Conley Tyler, who is attending the summit.

“Myanmar is a continuing issue, but I’m not sure it’ll be a focus. I feel the focus will be all positive, very future-oriented, talking about what we can do together and building that sense of excitement and momentum,” she added.

ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and they have a combined population of more than 650 million and GDP of more than $3 trillion.