Last month, naval officials from all 10 Asean countries and China converged on Singapore to develop a joint search and rescue plan for civilian or merchant ships in distress in international waters, an exercise that applied a naval code of conduct endorsed in 2014. Dr Collin Koh Swee Lean from RSIS in Singapore, said that the code “reinforces the utility of this mechanism in preventing or mitigating close-proximity encounters between navies” and “its incorporation in this inaugural Asean-China exercise is a re-emphasis of its importance in promoting regional maritime stability”.