Three weeks after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced his country’s new position on the South China Sea, Beijing called diplomats from 10 Southeast Asian countries together for a meeting to convey its worries about the rising risk for conflict over the contested waters.

Dr Collin Koh, a Research Fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies said that while the new US position has given a “morale boost” to the ASEAN claimants, they still must move cautiously on code of conduct talks and try to prevent them from being derailed by the US-China tensions. He added that the US pressure may potentially push China to agree to make the code a legally binding one, but it remains unclear how the parties could ensure its effectiveness and whether enforcement mechanisms would be established.