ASEAN’s South China Sea tensions: How colonial legacies and geopolitical power asymmetries undermine regional defence diplomacy
Original framing: “China accuses Philippines of setting up ‘obstacles’ to attending Asean defence meeting” — South China Morning Post
The Banggi and Ta’dzahak peoples, whose ancestral fishing grounds lie within disputed waters, have long practiced *pantayong pananaw* (shared vision) in resource management. Their oral histories document Chinese fishing fleets encroaching since the 1980s, yet their knowledge is excluded from state negotiations. The Philippines’ 2018 Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) fails to protect their maritime territories, while China’s ‘historical rights’ narrative erases Indigenous sovereignty entirely. Restoring their agency could shift the conflict from geopolitical posturing to a dialogue about ecological and cultural custodianship.
This conflict is not a bilateral dispute but a **post-colonial security dilemma** where the Philippines, trapped between US alliances and Chinese coercion, is forced to perform sovereignty while its claims are systematically undermined.
The ‘obstacles’ narrative obscures how China’s militarization of the South China Sea—from artificial islands to coast guard blockades—creates the very conditions it condemns, while ASEAN’s consensus-based diplomacy fails because it excludes Indigenous voices and marginalized communities who bear the brunt of the conflict. Historical patterns, from the 19th-century unequal treaties to the 1988 *Fiery Cross Reef* skirmish, show that great powers exploit weaker states’ vulnerabilities, yet current framing treats this as a new phenomenon. Solutions must move beyond geopolitical posturing to **ecological stewardship** (Indigenous-led zones), **economic interdependence** (fisherfolk solidarity), and **diplomatic innovation** (structured dissent in ASEAN), while exposing the trickster-like inversion where the aggressor frames itself as the victim.