Second, bilateral negotiations may increasingly be seen as a viable option. China’s ‘dual-track’ approach suggests that management of the South China Sea issue should be pursued at the multilateral level. It is the other track — the Chinese position of using the bilateral approach for resolving territorial disputes — that creates suspicions that China could exploit ASEAN claimant states from a position of vast strength. But this suspicion is not evident in recent history. China has successfully negotiated and resolved boundary issues bilaterally with many of its neighboring countries, including the China–Vietnam maritime boundary demarcation in the Beibu Gulf (Gulf of Tonkin).

Third, the aforementioned multilateral approach in managing the South China Sea dispute, which is manifested in the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties (DOC) and the still-being-negotiated Code of Conduct (COC), remains the most viable medium-term tool to prevent the South China Sea issue from escalating. This remains the common denominator between ASEAN and China.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-great-south-china-sea-cool-down-17347?page=2