VIENTIANE — The ASEAN working group on South China Sea code-of-conduct negotiations has circulated a Vientiane-drafted text to member capitals and to Beijing, ASEAN senior officials confirmed Sunday, marking the first substantive textual movement on the long-stalled code-of-conduct process since the framework’s 2023 single-text drafting impasse.

The draft, circulated Saturday evening through the ASEAN secretariat’s diplomatic channels, was developed by a working group led by Philippine and Vietnamese diplomats during the past four months and substantially advanced through the ASEAN summit that concluded in Vientiane on May 12. The text’s circulation initiates a thirty-day formal consultation window during which member capitals and Beijing are expected to provide substantive comments.

A senior Philippine foreign-ministry official, in a Sunday-morning briefing in Manila, said the text “addresses the principal substantive concerns” that the previous framework drafts had failed to resolve and that the working group had drawn on substantial expert input over the four-month drafting period. The official said the text had been “deliberately structured” to permit substantive engagement by all parties without requiring any single party to make concessions that would be politically infeasible at the outset of the consultation process.

The draft’s substantive content has not been publicly released, but senior ASEAN officials briefing reporters on background Sunday indicated that the text takes several distinctive approaches to the historical impasses. The text reportedly approaches the dispute-resolution question through a tiered mechanism that begins with consultation, escalates through mediation, and culminates in a binding-arbitration option that parties can opt into on a case-by-case basis.

The text also reportedly addresses the geographic-scope question — a long-standing impasse in which Beijing has resisted expansive scope while Manila and Hanoi have pushed for comprehensive coverage — through a graduated mechanism in which the code applies in its substantive entirety to certain core features while applying through more limited modalities to other features. The drafting team has characterized this approach as preserving the substantive interests of all parties while permitting a single-text framework to advance.

Beijing’s preliminary response to the text, communicated through the Chinese foreign ministry’s senior ASEAN-affairs official to ASEAN counterparts Sunday morning, has been substantively cautious without being rejectionist. A senior Chinese diplomat, in a brief background statement Sunday afternoon, said Beijing “appreciated the working group’s substantive engagement” and would conduct a “thorough and substantive review” of the text through the formal consultation window.

The Manila-Hanoi diplomatic alignment that produced the working-group leadership has been one of the consequential developments of the past year’s ASEAN politics. The two states’ substantive convergence on the code-of-conduct question reflects a broader alignment of strategic positioning that several regional analysts have characterized as the most significant intra-ASEAN realignment in two decades. The convergence has been reinforced through bilateral confidence-building measures including joint coast-guard exercises and shared satellite imagery.

Indonesian foreign-ministry officials, in remarks delivered Sunday afternoon at the Jakarta ASEAN secretariat, characterized the draft as “the most substantively serious advance in the code-of-conduct process since 2018” and indicated that Jakarta would engage substantively through the consultation window. Indonesia’s role as ASEAN’s largest member state has historically been important in shepherding code-of-conduct drafts through the bloc’s consensus process.

Singapore’s foreign-ministry response, communicated through Sunday-afternoon channels, was substantively supportive while emphasizing the importance of “preserving the consensus mechanism” through which ASEAN has historically conducted its diplomatic work. The Singaporean diplomat said the city-state would conduct its own substantive review of the text through the consultation window and would provide its comments through standard ASEAN channels.

The Malaysian and Brunei positions, which have historically been closer to the Chinese substantive positioning than the Philippine or Vietnamese, were reportedly accommodated through specific drafting choices in the text. A senior Malaysian foreign-ministry official, contacted Sunday afternoon, characterized the text as “a workable basis for continued negotiation” but indicated that Malaysia would provide substantive comments on several specific provisions.

The United States has welcomed the substantive movement on the code-of-conduct question. A senior State Department official, in remarks delivered Sunday afternoon at a regional-affairs conference in Honolulu, said the United States viewed the text’s circulation as “a substantively meaningful development in the regional architecture” and indicated that the United States would continue to support ASEAN’s central role in regional dispute-management arrangements.

The Australian government, through Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s Sunday-evening statement, characterized the text’s circulation as “an encouraging signal” and indicated that Australia would continue to engage with ASEAN partners on the substantive questions raised by the framework. Australia’s recent strategic-positioning work has emphasized the importance of ASEAN-centered regional arrangements.

The consultation window will run through June 16, with member capitals and Beijing expected to provide substantive comments by that date. The working group has scheduled an in-person meeting in Manila for the week of June 22 to review the comment package, with a subsequent meeting in Hanoi scheduled for early July to produce a revised text incorporating the comment-package responses.

The substantively revised text would then be considered by ASEAN foreign ministers at their annual meeting in late July, with the framework’s substantive advance to be reviewed at the ASEAN heads-of-state summit in October.