The consultations among claimant states for the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea are going smoothly, China said on Thursday.

According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, China and the claimant member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are “working together” toward adopting the CoC.

“The consultations on the COC are going smoothly. The second reading has been completed, and the third reading has commenced,” Mao said. “The parties have adopted guidelines to accelerate the consultations on the CoC.”

She made the remarks following Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi’s statement in Manila that Indonesia is ready to work with other ASEAN countries to finalize the “long-delayed” CoC.

Marsudi made a two-day visit to the Philippines this week, where she held a bilateral meeting with her counterpart, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo.

Four of the 10 members of ASEAN are primary claimants to the resource-rich South China Sea — the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei.

Mao noted that the issue of the South China Sea is “highly complex and faces external interference.”

“We hope the ASEAN countries will work with us toward the set target and speed up consultations for the early adoption of the CoC,” she said.

Last November, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced that the Philippine government had started negotiations with other ASEAN members, such as Vietnam and Malaysia, to formulate a separate CoC.

Citing the “more dire” situation in the South China Sea, which includes the West Philippine Sea, Marcos said the Philippines took the initiative to discuss the matter with the other ASEAN members with claims to the disputed areas.

‘We hope the ASEAN countries will work with us toward the set target and speed up consultations for the early adoption of the CoC,’ she said.

“We are now in the midst of negotiating our own Code of Conduct, for example, with Vietnam because we are still waiting for the Code of Conduct between China and ASEAN, and the progress has been rather slow, unfortunately,” he said.

China warned the Philippines against its plan, stressing that “any departure” from the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea framework and its spirit would “be null and void.”

China claims the vast South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea, within the Philippines’ 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration rejected Beijing’s historical claim to the West Philippine Sea, favoring Manila’s sovereign rights.

However, the 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea remains on paper as China has continued to reject the ruling and assert its claim to the waters.