Last week a sense of optimism wafted out of the Bali meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ASEAN and China agreed on "guidelines" for implementing their previously agreed 2002 Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC).

Some players including China hailed this as a breakthrough. Others agreed with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that "It was an important first step but only a first step" and that ASEAN and China should move quickly — even urgently — toward an actual code of conduct.

It is true that the guidelines reveal more by what they do not say than by what they do. Indeed, they lack specifics, timelines and enforceability. They do not specify what is in dispute and the practical focus is on nontraditional security issues like environmental protection, marine science and transnational crime.