The Construction Of International Mechanisms

Since the 70s of the 20th century, China and Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei have had a dispute on the demarcation of the emergence of the South China Sea islands and its Spratly Islands'sovereignty and the territorial sea, continental shelf and exclusive economic zone, which is so-called The "South China Sea issue." The South China Sea issue appeared just a short time, however, it becomes more complex and controvercial becouse of large reserve of oil and gas, economic interest involved in fishery resources, important geographic location,and other countries'intervention in South China Sea. After the Cold War, with the changes of the international situation and the South China Sea's situation, both parties involved in the dispute and other outside powers all made different adjustments about their policies of South China Sea. China and relevant ASEAN members have been continuously making various forms of consultations and discussions, and November 4, 2002 at the Sixth ASEAN-China summit, China and ASEAN signed the first political document-"Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea Declaration", thus,they reached a preliminary consensus on this issue. All countries involved in the dispute realized and promised that this isuue must been adressed peacefully.In fact,it is feasible to structure the international mechanisms for the South China Sea dispute both in theory and practice. China and the other five parties and ASEAN have tried to solve this problem through the existing consultation, coordination mechanisms. The fact that China and Vietnam successfully signed two agreements:"Tonkin Gulf territorial sea, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf delimitation agreement" and "Tonkin fishery cooperation agreement" illustrates it is prospect and practical to use cooperation mechanisms for the joint development in the South China Sea dispute.