In 2026, negotiations over a Code of Conduct (COC) for the South China Sea have entered what both sides describe as a final push. ASEAN and Chinese officials have repeatedly said in recent months that talks are making "good progress," reaffirming their aim to conclude this more-than-two-decades-long process within the year. As this year's ASEAN chair, the Philippines has sharply increased the pace of talks, holding monthly in-person and virtual meetings aimed at building consensus on freedom of navigation, dispute management and regional stability in the South China Sea. Several observers describe this as the fastest pace the process has seen since talks began.

The roots of the Code of Conduct talks trace back to 2002, when China and ASEAN signed the non-binding Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) — a political document without legal force. The two sides later agreed to build a more substantive and binding formal code on that foundation, but achieving that goal, given the complexity of issues involving territorial sovereignty, resource development and regional strategic balance, has taken far longer than expected.

The negotiating process itself has passed through several key milestones. In May 2017, the 14th Senior Officials' Meeting on implementing the DOC adopted a framework for the code. That August, ASEAN foreign ministers formally endorsed the framework at a meeting in Manila. In November 2017, China and ASEAN leaders, at the 20th China-ASEAN Summit, announced the launch of text negotiations — a substantive step 15 years after the DOC was signed. In August 2018, the two sides reached a "Single Draft Negotiating Text" (SDNT), which laid out general provisions including the obligation to cooperate, promoting practical maritime cooperation, self-restraint and confidence-building, incident prevention and incident management — forming the basis for the clause-by-clause negotiations that followed.

This round of acceleration did not emerge out of nowhere. In October 2025, while Malaysia held the ASEAN chairmanship, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met Chinese Premier Li Qiang and announced that both sides had agreed to speed up the Code of Conduct negotiating process; around the same time, Malaysia's defence minister said after a visit to Beijing that China was voicing active support for reaching a code. Those statements were widely seen as a key sign that the talks had regained political momentum, paving the way for the Philippines to further accelerate negotiations after taking over the ASEAN chairmanship in 2026. Some observers argue that direct statements at the leader level carry more weight as evidence of genuine commitment than progress reported at the technical-team level.

In 2026, under the Philippines' ASEAN chairmanship, both sides further accelerated the pace of talks, converting what had been intermittent meetings into a fixed monthly mechanism — including both working-level joint working group sessions and higher-level official dialogues — in an effort to compress the time needed to finish negotiating the code's remaining provisions and overcome long-standing differences.

Two core disputes remain. First is whether the code should be legally binding — several Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Vietnam, argue it should carry clear legal force and enforcement mechanisms, but China has not publicly backed this position, instead favoring a political, voluntary regional arrangement. Second is the question of geographic scope — commentators have noted that earlier draft versions sought to exclude disputed waters such as the Paracel Islands from the code's coverage, while commentators such as veteran Indonesian journalist Endy Bayuni argue the code should cover the entire South China Sea without carve-outs, to preserve the integrity and consistency of the rules. Notably, while today's digest item refers specifically to the "Nansha (Spratly) waters," the geographic scope of the negotiations themselves extends well beyond the Spratlys to include other disputed waters such as the Paracels — a point that differs somewhat from the digest's framing.

There is also an unresolved technical question over how the legal relationship between the new code and the 2002 DOC should be defined once the code takes effect — whether the existing DOC should be superseded, applied alongside the new code, or retained as a supplementary document. How this is settled will directly affect the code's future legal standing and practical enforceability, and it remains one of the key issues under discussion by both sides' technical teams.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in March this year that Beijing is determined to reach an agreement with ASEAN as soon as possible, stressing that the Code of Conduct should continue to be advanced as a (quasi-)bilateral process between China and ASEAN, rather than involving outside powers. Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro said in July that the two sides have reached a growing consensus on defining the principle of "self-restraint," which she described as an important sign of substantive progress. She also noted that while contentious issues remain in the talks, political will on all sides is strengthening — a key factor observers are watching to judge whether the negotiations can conclude by year's end.

Analysts broadly agree that 2026 is seen by all parties as a critical window for concluding the Code of Conduct. Several maritime security experts have warned that continued delay would raise the risk of friction and confrontation in the South China Sea; at the same time, a substantive and effectively binding code would help safeguard freedom of navigation in the region and reduce the risk of miscalculation and accidental conflict. The U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates that trade transiting the South China Sea each year is worth roughly 21% of global trade by value, underscoring the waterway's importance to global supply chains. For Thailand, an ASEAN member that is not a South China Sea claimant, this process also carries real significance — the South China Sea is a vital international shipping corridor linking the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and regional stability there helps protect Thailand's own trade shipping and the wider ASEAN supply chain from disruption, while providing a more stable security environment for China and ASEAN's deepening economic and strategic partnership.

No public reporting has yet confirmed that the Code of Conduct has been formally signed or that the full text has been finalized. Under the current arrangement, the Philippines, as this year's ASEAN chair, will continue to lead the talks; if they are not concluded within the year, the ASEAN chairmanship will pass to Singapore in 2027, which will continue pushing this more than two-decade-long process toward final completion. Analysts say the upcoming rounds of China-ASEAN foreign ministers' and leaders' meetings will be key markers of whether the talks conclude on schedule.