evidence: In 2002 China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed a "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea," seeking to reduce the tension between them in these waters. Since then, however, the two sides have failed to make substantive progress toward elevating the status of this document to a legally binding code of conduct. Some of the details are clouded, but in recent years the Chinese have taken to referring to their claims in the East China and South China Seas as "core interests." Meanwhile, in 2012 Vietnam adopted a maritime law defining its own territory as including the Paracels, Spratlys, and the Macclesfield Bank in their entirety. China countered this by establishing a local government for the three groups of islands under the city of Sansha, sited on Yongxing Island (Woody Island) in the Paracels, and by setting up a military security district for this city.