Following the Cold War, ASEAN sought to position itself as the basis of regional integration in the Asia-Pacific Region. Today, however, ASEAN’s positions look much weaker.
Since its inception in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been a key factor in Pacific politics. Its original aim was to prevent superpowers from dragging small and medium-sized Southeast Asian countries into the Second Indochina War (1964-1973). To this end, ASEAN developed a unique system of dual-level confidential consultations that enabled its members to adopt decisions on key issues and later jointly uphold them internationally. Washington, Moscow and Beijing found it difficult to oppose the soft, if united, ASEAN bloc.
Following the Cold War, ASEAN sought to position itself as the basis of regional integration in the Asia-Pacific Region. The 1997 Asian financial crisis weakened Japan and South Korea, who are key US partners. China, on the contrary, chose rapprochement with Southeast Asian nations rather than confrontation. This resulted in the emergence of three consultative formats: ASEAN+1 (China), ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, South Korea), and ASEAN+6 (China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand). In 2005, the latter gave rise to yet another consultative mechanism – the East Asia Summit – which was gradually joined by Russia and the US. On November 20, 2007, the ASEAN Charter was signed at the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore.
Today, however, ASEAN’s positions look much weaker. Though formally it retains all the previously created integration and consultative mechanisms, the changing alignment of political forces in the APR has not benefited ASEAN, while its policies are increasingly being sidelined by the policies of great powers or other integration unions.
Why the decline?
First, two alternative integration projects have emerged in the Pacific area in recent years. Since late 2011, US diplomats have accelerated negotiations to create the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would actually fold the ASEAN countries into a broader integration scheme. The TPP is still not a done deal, but the participants in the talks agreed as early as winter 2012 that each party would be free to choose ASEAN or TPP standards. Brunei has announced that it was ready to use both legal systems in its decision-making. But this is undermining ASEAN’s dual-level consultative arrangement.
China has been drifting away from the priorities of ASEAN integration as well. The fact that Vietnam, the Philippines, and Brunei joined the TPP talks caused China to question whether the Southeast Asian nations were the most reliable partners. The mission of Chinese diplomacy today is to create an economic project capable of weakening or, ideally, blocking the TPP. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which got under way in fall 2014, signifies that China no longer regards ASEAN as an equal partner and that ASEAN+1 is being replaced by a payments system focused on the Chinese economy.
Second, the conflict in the South China Sea opened rifts between China and the leading ASEAN countries, Vietnam and the Philippines. Back in March 2010, when China declared the South China Sea a vital zone of interest, the situation did not seem hopeless. But that changed after the ASEAN summit in Hanoi, held on July 22, 2010, at which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton backed Vietnam’s position. Shows of force were all too common in the ensuing five years, resulting in a surge of anti-China sentiments in Vietnam, the Philippines and even Brunei. In turn, the US-Vietnamese dialogue and the US-Philippine military agreements signed in 2011 and 2014 only reinforced China’s view of these countries as “US puppets.” China and ASEAN are now more like adversaries than partners. But without a partnership with China, ASEAN has reverted to what it was before 1989, a bloc of small and medium-sized Southeast Asian countries.
Third, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), a security arrangement, has lost much of its importance. It was born in 1994 of ASEAN’s desire for a peaceful resolution of territorial disputes in the South China Sea. ASEAN laid claim to being a force capable of engineering a peaceful settlement of the most vexing regional conflicts. After all, ASEAN did manage to settle the Cambodia conflict in 1988. But escalating tensions in South China Sea means that ASEAN can no longer claim to be a “unique peacemaker.”
Fourth, the US is beginning to engage ASEAN countries in a revamped version of the “China containment” strategy that the Obama administration unveiled in 2010. The landmarks on the path to its implementation were the US-Vietnamese memorandum on security cooperation, sale by the US of a destroyer, Gregorio del Pillar, to the Philippines, and the expansion of the US naval presence in Singapore. Although partnership with Washington gave ASEAN countries more confidence as they challenged Beijing, it also devalued formats for consultations with privileged partners.
The Russian resource
The ASEAN countries have failed to benefit from the relations with Russia. Starting in 1996, Russia has tried to build a system of privileged partnership with ASEAN. Between 2003 and 2005, the sides signed a number of ambitious declarations regarding their intention to move towards a strategic partnership. Moscow had even declared that it shared the basic provisions of the 1976 Bangkok Agreement, a constituent ASEAN document.
But the Kuala-Lumpur summit in December 2005 demonstrated the limits of Russia-ASEAN rapprochement, with Australia blocking Russia’s participation in the East Asia Summit.
None of the ASEAN countries supported Russia, which meant that ASEAN did not regard Russia as a privileged partner. Accordingly, the Russia-ASEAN Action Plan approved in 2008 was hamstrung from the start by mutual mistrust.
Russia joined the East Asia Summit in 2010 along with the US. What appeared to be a formality at first sight had two serious consequences. First, it was the final nail in the coffin of the plan to create an ASEAN+7 cooperation format with Russian participation. Second, the idea to turn ASEAN into an alternative to US trans-Pacific integration projects proved a failure as well. This put Beijing on guard.
No ASEAN country has signed a free-trade agreement with Russia yet. The economic partnership, in effect, has been restricted to aerospace cooperation. Nor has it proved possible to create a Russia-ASEAN partnership model.
Russia’s interest in dialogue with ASEAN waned in 2010, with focus shifting to APEC. This prompted ASEAN to drift away from Russia as well.
A key stumbling block to Russia-ASEAN rapprochement is the 2001 grand treaty between Russia and China in which both countries assumed obligations akin to an alliance. Given the strain in China’s relations with a number of ASEAN countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam and even Brunei, Russia is regarded as China’s ally.
Vague prospects
All of this is undermining ASEAN’s main achievement – its ability to be a partner to China. ASEAN is descending to the level of an ordinary regional organization of Southeast Asian countries whose only option is greater cooperation with the United States. ASEAN is watching as its central role in Asia wanes along with all the political capital it accrued in the late 1990s.
What is most dangerous about this process is its routine nature. At first sight, it is hard to detect any real problems. ASEAN’s structures and formats seem to be functioning as usual. Meetings are held and decisions are adopted. On the face of it, the organization is doing quite well, no worse than seven or ten years ago. The loss of momentum and the mounting of problems are not always noticeable from outside.
The “routine crisis” can only be solved by a political genius who grasps the problem and offers effective solutions. It’s an open question whether the Southeast Asian countries have the talent pool to produce such a figure. But unless ASEAN solves this problem, it will be relegated – routinely and inevitably – to co-star status.
