The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and China are set to resume negotiations on the Code of Conduct (COC), which is intended to manage the dispute in the South China Sea. What the Philippines should strongly guard against is for the COC to become a tool of China to legitimize its seizure of geologic features and maritime zones in the South China Sea in violation of international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or Unclos. Once the COC is signed, China can proclaim that all artificial island-building and militarization of geologic features in the South China Sea should cease. The effect is to de facto legitimize all prior island-building and militarization of China and to bar all other countries from fortifying the geologic features they presently occupy.

Carpio, A. T. (2020, September 24). What the Code of Conduct shouldn't be. Philippine Daily Inquirer, p. A6.