IN 2025, the South China Sea (SCS) dispute had avoided open war, but that is an uncomfortably low benchmark. The conflict did not de-escalate; it evolved into a more dangerous form. The margin between routine patrols and international incidents narrowed to mere meters, raising the probability that miscalculation, not intent, could trigger escalation.
What emerged was a year of sustained, increasingly physical gray-zone confrontation. Encounters at sea grew riskier, and the contest expanded into the air domain, unfolding under global scrutiny. The SCS ceased to be an abstract sovereignty and sovereign rights dispute, and became an operational reality where injury and escalation were no longer theoretical.
At the core was the Philippines-China conflict, which crystallized the region’s central dilemma. Three pressure points defined the year: a high-stakes frontline at Second Thomas Shoal, an emerging flash point at Sabina Shoal/Escoda and the enduring choke point of Scarborough Shoal. Together, they illustrated a dispute that is now more distributed across hot spots, more multi-domain (sea and air) and more tightly interwoven with lawfare, coalition-building and narrative warfare.
As the Philippines approaches its 2026 Asean chairmanship under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the challenge will not be resolving sovereignty or sovereign rights-related issues — an unrealistic aim — but rather managing escalation in a crowded battlespace where visibility is high, rules are contested and the cost of error keeps rising.
2025 PH-CN SCS storyline
The 2025 Philippines-China SCS storyline marked a shift not toward peace, but toward managed confrontation, a little less explosive than 2024, yet broader, more complex and arguably more fragile. Violence was contained at selected flash points, but the dispute expanded geographically, operationally and politically, turning the SCS into a sustained test of crisis management rather than conflict resolution.
At Second Thomas Shoal, tactical de-escalation was held. A provisional arrangement allowed Philippine resupply missions to proceed without collisions or injuries. The shoal remained a live strategic contest, quieter but no less contested. The most destabilizing shift was the dispute’s expansion into the air domain. Air encounters are inherently less forgiving than maritime ones: accidents happen more quickly, evidence circulates instantly and domestic pressure to respond harshly hardens quickly. This development raised the stakes well beyond ship-to-ship brinkmanship. Meanwhile, tensions around Sandy Cay and Thitu Island signaled a deliberate civilianization of the dispute. Fisherfolk, researchers and quasi-civilian missions became frontline actors in legitimacy contests involving flag-planting, surveys and symbolic presence. This blurred military-civilian boundaries and shifted risk onto noncombatants, making escalation both more politically sensitive and morally charged.
By mid-to-late 2025, Scarborough Shoal emerged as the strategic center of gravity. Its importance to fishing as a livelihood, and China’s designation of the shoal as a “nature reserve” turned Scarborough into a convergence point for sovereignty, livelihood security, military signaling and legal framing. US naval operations nearby and repeated air-sea incidents reinforced its role as a frontline signaling zone.
Also, alliance dynamics intensified throughout the year. The Philippines deepened military/security ties with the US, Japan, Canada, Australia and others, expanding joint military exercises and maritime patrols. China countered with warnings against “external interference.” The SCS thus became ever more embedded in great-power rivalry and strategic competition, and lawfare and narrative warfare dominated 2025. Hence, legitimacy, not firepower, was the primary battlefield, though it was still enforced through physical pressure. Indeed, the pattern was not calm, but it was a managed instability. Compared with mid-2024’s intensity, 2025 showed greater restraint at specific points, yet a wider, more layered confrontation across the seas, the air, civilian spaces, alliances and legal narratives. The result is an inherently fragile equilibrium that places enormous weight on crisis control as the region heads into 2026, when even a slight misstep could unravel the carefully maintained standoff.
Looking to 2026
As the Philippines approaches its 2026 Asean chairmanship, it does so not from a position of diplomatic ease but amid sustained strategic strain. As the chairman of Asean, Manila holds agenda-setting and convening authority within Asean, yet remains a frontline claimant in the SCS, exposed daily to operational friction at sea and in the air. Asean’s consensus rule further constrains what any chairman can deliver on sovereignty disputes, making leadership more about managing tensions than resolving them.
Marcos Jr.’s chosen theme — “Navigating Our Future, Together” — is telling. By anchoring peace and security to technology-enabled solutions such as maritime domain awareness, early warning systems and disaster response, the chairmanship signals a pragmatic shift: away from the illusion of settling sovereignty claims and toward risk management, escalation control and behavioral stabilization in an increasingly hazardous maritime environment.
A realistic 2026 baseline is therefore modest but meaningful. Incremental movement on the Asean-China Code of Conduct (COC) is plausible, perhaps through a more consolidated draft text. Yet a fully binding agreement will remain out of reach, given unresolved disagreements over scope, enforcement and third-party involvement. Operational friction will persist at normalized confrontation zones — Scarborough Shoal, Sabina Shoal and areas around Thitu Island and Sandy Cay — where demonstrations of resolve remain politically and strategically incentivized. At the same time, joint maritime patrols and military exercises involving the Philippines and its Western partners will continue, further embedding the SCS dispute within wider Indo-Pacific rivalry rather than insulating it from external dynamics.
Success in 2026, then, should not be measured by sovereignty breakthroughs but by whether the dispute becomes safer, more predictable and more rules-bound. That requires concrete steps. A credible COC pathway must be paired with practical risk-reduction tools, such as an incidents-at-sea or safety annex covering maneuvering standards, separation distances, communications protocols, limits on water cannon use and post-incident medical assistance. These technical measures are politically feasible and operationally life-saving.
Equally critical is the entrenchment of a “no-injury, no-boarding” norm, particularly to protect civilian vessels and fishermen from becoming instruments of coercive signaling. Scarborough Shoal, now the dispute’s center of gravity, demands tailored and careful handling: a monitored fisheries and access arrangement, ideally with joint or third-party environmental oversight, could stabilize livelihoods without allowing environmental narratives to harden into unilateral control.
Ultimately, the chairmanship’s real test will lie not in summit language but in crisis response. Functional hotlines, rapid clarification mechanisms and agreed procedures for rescue and medical aid will matter far more than communiqués. In this sense, Marcos Jr.’s focus on technology and early warning offers Asean a politically acceptable pathway to strengthen crisis-management architecture without reopening the sovereignty debates that Asean is structurally ill-equipped to resolve.
Conclusion
No doubt, the Philippines’ core challenge in 2026 is unavoidable. As a claimant, Manila will continue asserting its maritime rights through presence, patrols and public exposure of confrontations. As Asean chairman, it must preserve regional unity, neutrality and centrality, especially when some member states prioritize stability and economic ties over confrontation. This dual role requires discipline rather than political grandstanding. Overreach would fracture Asean. Passivity would normalize coercion. The Philippines’ Asean chairmanship will therefore demand calibrated leadership, firm on principles, restrained in rhetoric and relentlessly focused on process.
Source: The Manila Times
https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/01/03/opinion/columns/how-the-scs-became-a-gray-zone-war-in-2025-and-why-2026-could-be-a-pivot/2252021
