The development of the Americentric vision of Indo-Pacific threatens to make the split within ASEAN even deeper, and to undermine its fundamental commitment to geopolitical non-alignment. In this regard, ASEAN’s promotion of its own vision of Indo-Pacific is as an attempt to retain a central role in building the regional security architecture.
The notion of Indo-Pacific is increasingly rapidly becoming part of the discourse among academics and policymakers in the majority of the Asia-Pacific countries. The concept is being actively discussed in the nations of Southeast Asia. Thanks to their geographical position, economic ties and strategic military significance, they are destined to play the leading role in the development of the concept.
On 25 June 2019, the “ten” met at the ASEAN summit, where the intergovernmental group published its official vision of Indo-Pacific, which significantly diverges from the American version. It is worth noting that earlier, a number of ASEAN countries had actively promoted the concept. For example, Indonesia, which wants to become a “global sea support” through the development of cooperation with other actors in the Indo-Pacific region, was the first ASEAN country to introduce the concept of Indo-Pacific, on the margins of the Southeast Asian dialogue platform.
The document prepared by the ASEAN participants deepens and clarifies the position of the “ten” in Indo-Pacific as the place that the Association occupies in this initiative.
According to the authors of the “vision”, Southeast Asia is the epicentre of actively developing economic and political processes in the region. Hence, ASEAN should play a key role in the building of a new geostrategic space.
The Association’s reasons are simple and clear. ASEAN faces a number of internal and external problems that undermine its integrity and position as a leading player in the region. These have included protracted territorial conflicts between the organisation’s member countries, disputes over the influence of the Chinese Belt and Road initiative on national economies, and, especially, the lack of consensus within ASEAN with regard to the South China Sea issue and how to react to the purported “Chinese threat”.
In addition, the development of the Americentric vision of Indo-Pacific threatens to widen the split within ASEAN and undermine its fundamental principles, such as non-alignment, a balance between the great powers, and non-bloc positioning.
Now the US and its QUAD partners (Japan, Australia and India) are working to pull the Southeast Asian countries, especially Vietnam, into their orbit of influence. It is clear from the fact that among the ASEAN counties, Vietnam occupies the top position in the list of Washington’s prospective partners, according to a June 1, 2019 US Defense Department report on the American strategy in Indo-Pacific.
It is important that among all ASEAN member countries, Vietnam has the most positive attitude towards the idea of Indo-Pacific. According to an October 2018 survey published by the Australian Institute of Strategic Policy, 69% of local respondents viewed this initiative in a positive way. Moreover, 88% of Vietnamese stressed the need to develop QUAD in order to strengthen the regional security architecture.
Under these conditions, ASEAN, at least declaratively, is looking forward to promote a multilateral format or concept that could help the Association’s leaders maintain a key principle they refer to as “ASEAN Centrality”.
In this case, it is not about creating new institutional mechanics. The ASEAN “Vision” of Indo-Pacific implies the active involvement of existing dialogue platforms on regional security. The top examples of these are the East Asian Summit (EAS), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting.
Another distinctive feature of the document is its association of ASEAN’s economic plans with the overall development of multilateral cooperation within Indo-Pacific. For a long time, ASEAN member countries have been promoting the idea of enhancing regional connectivity and strengthening the ASEAN community.
According to ASEAN’s ruling elites, the Indo-Pacific concept is an additional source of potential foreign investment, promoting existing projects like the BIMP-EAGA initiative, and deepening its interaction with other integration projects and institutions (for example, the Association of Indian Ocean countries or BIMSTEC).
Finally, another major point of the ASEAN “Vision” is that it does not see Indo-Pacific as a rival to Asia-Pacific. The main achievements and strategic projects of ASEAN deal with developing the main regional geo-economic and geostrategic processes. Therefore, using the notion of an Indo-Pacific in official documents and statements, instead of Asia-Pacific is unlikely to win massive support in the ruling circles of the Association.
Thus, ASEAN’s attempt to create its own model for how the regional processes should develop seems reasonable and very timely. However, the question remains, whether the ASEAN-centred concept of IPR could interest their regional partners and whether the US and their QUAD partners will coordinate their strategic plans with ASEAN vision.
