ABSTRACT
China’s creeping assertiveness in the Mischief Reef resulted in a new dynamics in the South China Sea. Anxieties in Southeast Asia about a revisionist China activated a collective attempt to seek a multilateral mechanism to prevent China’s subsequent actions that would alter the status quo in the area. Political elites in Southeast Asia pragmatically understood that there would be no prospect of any complete and permanent settlement of the disputes over offshore islands in the foreseeable future. Therefore, they invested more energy in designing a code of conduct, which focused on confl ict avoidance, dispute management and functional cooperation, to induce cooperation and mitigate strategic risks from China. As a new ASEAN member, Vietnam quickly familiarised itself with the ASEAN processes and started utilising it as a platform to advance its interests in the South China Sea. At the same time, Hanoi continued to engage its neighbours bilaterally to manage the existing disputes and fi nd solutions to them.
