ASEAN Player 1
6- Cooperation with China on SLOCs in SCS will be more difficult in a
5.3 Policy Implications
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growth; and Japan because is involved in maritime disputes with China in the East
China Sea, as well as its recently announcement to provide ships to the Philippines
and Vietnam in order to contain China in the SCS dispute. These recent developments
in the region made think that, at present, these states will have difficulties in
promoting cooperation initiatives unless their relation with China will improve in the
following years.
5.3 Policy Implications
The first policy implication that can be derived from this study is that disputant
countries should focus on what most of the states always mention, win-win situations,
which in our understanding will come when focusing on absolute gains, as for
instance SLOCs cooperation. This can give support to the development and
implementation of the COC in SCS, which will allow a peacefully manage of the
dispute, and eventually the negotiation of more delicate issues as resources sharing or
sovereignty. A possible approach to the implementation of this policy is to use
officials with experience in the conflict management field, who, as the simplest option,
can promote track I diplomacy meetings in where they identified those initiatives
related with real win-win situations, that is those in which the benefits for cooperating
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are bigger than for not cooperating, like in the SLOCs proposal, or, as the most
complex option, suggesting ways to compensate states for acceding to shelve the
dispute or even sacrifice part of the resources/sovereignty benefits in exchange for
bigger gains in other issues. Although these other issues should be identified and
proposed by these officials, some possible candidates are regional economic stability
and integration, a security architecture for Asian region, or an Easter institutional
model different from the Western one.
The second policy implication is to use previous joint maritime patrols,
non-traditional security cooperation, and the development SCS COC, to counter the
effects of disputes about sovereignty, resources, and military development. For
instance, previous joint maritime patrols can be improved, used as models, and
adjusted to avoid unilateral resources extractions in the region. Non-traditional
security cooperation can be used to foster Conflict Building Measures (CBMs) to
avoid clashes between the developing armies. Finally, the process of development of a
COC for SCS will help to decrease tensions, for instance including regulations like
COLREGs and or CUES, and will provide the basis to manage and eventually solve
the sovereignty issue in a peaceful way. A practical proposal to implement this policy
is to use the Joint Working Groups for the DOC implementation to emphasize the
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prohibition of unilateral oil resources extraction, territories occupation, and new
facilities establishment; also organizing joint patrols in SCS to monitor that countries
respect the ban, and offering in exchange support to the fight against non-traditional
security in order to allow safe flow of energy, goods and ships through the SLOCs to
all countries using them.
The last policy implication is that at least one stakeholder should initiate a project for
ambitious cooperation on joint maritime patrols in SCS. We have propose the South
China Sea Peace Island Initiative, but any other similar project will be useful if it
takes into account the roots of the dispute, the needs and interest of all the actors
involved during the negotiation process, and lead to an outcome that can fulfill all of
them at the same time. Due to the current tense situations in the region, to find a
perfect state to initiate cooperation will be difficult in the short/middle term. An
adequate approach to attain the aim of this policy is to organize track 1.5 diplomacy
conferences with middle rank officials that has experience in the implementation of
agreements, military personal who has taken part in previous maritime patrols, and
scholars who can suggest joint patrols and other useful initiatives to generate
confidence among armies, as well as to secure the SLOCs for the common use of all
stakeholders.
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In conclusion, we have presented the SCS dispute using the stag-hunt model to foster
cooperation on SLOCs protection in the region. Although it is still necessary more
efforts from all stakeholders, as well as more researches in the use of game theory as
conflict management in the SCS, the findings and policy implications this study
provides will help to observe the dispute from a different perspective, in which
absolute gains plays an important role to facilitate cooperation on securing SLOCs,
and thus, leading to real win-win agreements where all the stakeholders obtain more
benefits from cooperative situations than acting unilaterally for their own benefit in
SCS dispute.
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