Philippines Hosts ASEAN Foreign Ministers, New Zealand Bolsters Indo-Pacific Ties

The Philippines this week is hosting the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting (AMM) and Related Meetings, drawing foreign ministers and secretaries from across Southeast Asia and its dialogue partners. Among them is New Zealand Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters, who travelled to Manila from July 20 to 24 as part of what he has described as a core of the Government's Foreign Policy Reset, lifting New Zealand's relationships across Southeast Asia.

Peters' visit carries extra weight this year: the Philippines and New Zealand are marking the 60th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations. Alongside the multilateral sessions, Peters is expected to hold a series of bilateral meetings and sign cooperation agreements with Philippine counterparts on the sidelines of the summit, reinforcing a partnership Wellington says has continued to expand across political, economic and regional lines.

New Zealand's presence spans the full week of engagements. Peters will attend the annual ASEAN-New Zealand Post-Ministerial Conference, as well as the Foreign Ministers' Meetings of the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), forums that bring Southeast Asian nations together with major partners including the United States, China, Japan, India and Australia to discuss regional security, economic cooperation and strategic issues.

He joins a heavyweight line-up of visiting ministers, including:

• United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio

• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi

• Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong

• Indian External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

• Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi

along with counterparts from across Southeast Asia, East Asia, North America, Europe, and Latin America.

A Week Built Around ASEAN Centrality

Philippines' Secretary of Foreign Affairs Maria Theresa Lazaro is chairing the week's proceedings, which build on the priorities of the Philippines' 2026 ASEAN Chairship.

On Monday, July 20, briefing reporters at the International Media Center, ASEAN Spokesperson Dominic Xavier Imperial said the meetings would advance the bloc's agenda across its Political-Security, Economic, and Socio-Cultural Community Pillars, echoing President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s framing of the Chairship as an effort to strengthen dialogue on regional security, deepen economic integration, and uplift the resilience of ASEAN peoples.

The week opened with the 16th Interface Meeting between ASEAN foreign ministers and the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), which Imperial said underscores the bloc's commitment to protecting the rights of vulnerable groups in the region.

Ministers also convened the Meeting of the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) Commission to review the treaty's 2023–2027 Plan of Action, including continued efforts to bring Nuclear Weapon States into the treaty's protocol.

The AMM formally convenes on July 21, where ministers will review ASEAN's progress across its three pillars and are expected to adopt two key outcome documents: the 59th AMM Joint Communiqué, and new Guidelines on the Modalities for Engagement of ASEAN with High Contracting Parties to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), a Philippine Chairship deliverable meant to give non-ASEAN treaty signatories a clearer framework for engagement.

From July 22 to 23, ASEAN ministers hold Post-Ministerial Conferences with external partners, including New Zealand, the United States, China, India, Canada, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and the European Union, alongside the 27th ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers' Meeting, the 33rd ASEAN Regional Forum, and the 16th East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers' Meeting.

July 20: ASEAN Member States convene for the Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Commission (SEANWFZ ExCom) in Manila.

Global Pressures Frame the Summit

Imperial said the meetings arrive at a moment of heightened global instability, which makes dialogue between ASEAN and its partners more consequential than usual. The war in the Middle East and energy security concerns stemming from disruption at the Strait of Hormuz sit alongside regional flashpoints on the agenda, including Myanmar, represented this week by its permanent secretary of foreign affairs — and the Thailand-Cambodia border dispute.

"This is where and when ASEAN will meet with the dialogue partners, and these dialogue partners are, of course, also involved in and are impacted by what's happening globally," Imperial told reporters. "This is a very good opportunity, a venue for the dialogue partners in ASEAN to engage and discuss whatever is impacting not only regionally, but also globally."

On relations with Beijing, Imperial confirmed Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will attend the ASEAN-China Post-Ministerial Conference, and that Secretary Lazaro is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with him on the sidelines, a meeting Imperial said would cover both bilateral ties and the wider regional picture, though he declined to detail the specific agenda.

ASEAN 2026 Spokesperson Dominic Xavier Imperial holds the first media briefing at the International Media Centre, outlining what reporters can expect throughout the week. Photo: Carla Teng-Westergaard/AMC

50 Years of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation

The week culminates on July 24 with commemorations marking the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), a signing ceremony for acceding states, the inaugural High-Level Conference of the High Contracting Parties, and a gala dinner hosted by President Marcos Jr.

Imperial called TAC as one of the major deliverables of the Philippines' Chairship and said it would stand as a foundation for the region's long-sought Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.

He noted that bringing together the treaty's 58 High Contracting Parties sends "a good message, not only to the region but to the world, that despite what is happening, we are still able to sit down together and discuss what is very important for the region and for the world."

South China Sea Tensions Simmer Beneath the Summit

The diplomacy is unfolding against a tense backdrop. This year also marks the 10th anniversary of Manila's arbitration victory over Beijing, which dismissed China's expansive "nine-dash line" claim in the South China Sea. Fourteen countries, including New Zealand, backed the ruling at the time; China has continued to reject it, and much of the rest of the ASEAN bloc has stayed notably quiet on the issue.

That tension has sharpened in the past two weeks. On July 10, China's state-run China Daily posted an AI-generated video to Facebook depicting a monkey dressed in Filipino traditional attire, a barong Tagalog and salakot, being directed by figures representing the United States and Japan, before being blasted into the sea by a Chinese Coast Guard water cannon while holding a document representing the arbitral award, timed just before the ruling's 10th anniversary on July 12.

China Daily's AI generated content depicting Filipinos as monkeys and criticising the 2016 artbitral ruling. Screenshots: China Daily/Official YT account

Manila raised its objections first at working level, when Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Leo Herrera-Lim summoned Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan on July 16 to demand the material be taken down.

The Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) then confirmed it had formally protested China Daily's depiction of Filipinos in the video and accompanying editorial cartoons. The DFA said it has long rejected distortions of the arbitral ruling, but drew "a firm line at the depiction of Filipinos as monkeys," calling the video "deeply offensive, distressing and unacceptable."

The Philippine embassy in Beijing separately wrote to the China Daily editor-in-chief demanding an immediate takedown.

Beijing's response has been to distance the government from the outlet, characterising the video as the work of the media rather than an official position. Whether that dispute surfaces in the Lazaro-Wang Yi bilateral, alongside long-running friction over joint gas exploration in the South China Sea, remains to be seen.

The summit opened against an increasingly tense backdrop. Early Monday, July 20, a Filipino servicemember was injured during a confrontation with the China Coast Guard (CCG) near Second Thomas Shoal, after CCG vessels intercepted a Philippine resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre, the World War II-era ship that Manila deliberately grounded on the reef in 1999 to reinforce its claim in the disputed waters.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) later released video footage showing personnel aboard a Philippine Navy rigid-hull inflatable boat confronting a much larger China Coast Guard vessel, with officers from both sides seen engaging in a physical altercation.

The AFP said Philippine personnel acted in self-defence after being attacked by the CCG. China, however, disputed that account, asserting that Philippine forces initiated the confrontation.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines released video footage of the July 20 confrontation at Second Thomas Shoal, saying it shows China Coast Guard (CCG) personnel attacking Philippine forces. The Chinese Embassy in Manila (lower right), meanwhile, released its own footage, asserting that Philippine personnel initiated the confrontation after allegedly ignoring repeated warnings from the CCG.

The shoal sits within the West Philippine Sea, the term Manila uses for the parts of the South China Sea that fall inside its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The clash broke out on the very day ministers began arriving in Manila, a pointed echo of the 2023 and 2024 flashpoints at the same shoal, which also left Filipino personnel injured and vessels damaged during resupply missions to the outpost.

Coming hours before US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and the rest of the delegation touched down, the incident leaves Manila little choice but to put the West Philippine Sea squarely on the table, in the ASEAN-China Post-Ministerial Conference, and in Lazaro's own bilateral with Wang Yi.

-Asia Media Centre