July 30, 2012
Preeti Nalwa
Institute for Defense Studies and
Analyses (India)
The Kingdom of Cambodia, chair and
host of the 10 member-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),
hosted the second ASEAN Summit in its Peace Palace building at Phnom
Penh from July 9-13. The Summit convened its signature assemblage—the
45th ASEAN Foreign Minister’s Meeting (AMM)/Post Ministerial Conference
(PMC). Apart from this annual feature, the Summit also saw the
participation of ASEAN partners from 17 countries under the aegis of
19th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), 13th ASEAN Plus Three (APT) and the 2nd
East Asia Summit (EAS). On July 12, Catherine Ashton, High
Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of
the European Commission, signed the Instrument of Accession of the
European Union (EU) to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast
Asia (TAC). The TAC is a non-aggression and cooperation pact between
ASEAN members and their partners; it is also a prerequisite for
membership of the EAS. After signing the Instrument of Accession, Ashton
remarked that “This is an important step because it commits us to
working together in tackling issues that we face in a peaceful way. It
also confirms that we will work together to address some of the security
and political concerns of the region."1
In saying so, Ashton echoed the
quintessential process-oriented approach of the ASEAN towards dispute
settlement, i.e. the ‘ASEAN way’ of managing regional discord through
the modalities of norms and principles of non-interference, peaceful
settlement of disputes, non-confrontational attitude to conflicts,
emphasis on musyawarah (consensus) and muafakat (consultation). The TAC
is the fountainhead of these modalities of building trust and confidence
through dialogue. And without compromising on its fundamental
stipulations, the ASEAN has accepted the countries on either side of the
Pacific into its fold and widened its organizational base extensively.
In this process, it has morphed into its present hydra-headed form
accentuating ‘open regionalism’ and has also staged itself as a
potential cradle for building a more comprehensive, cooperative,
inclusive and multilateralist regional security architecture in East
Asia. The ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus-8 (ADMM-Plus 8) is the
latest addition to its network aimed at creating neutral, consultative
and open engagement for the Asia-Pacific.
The fact that a regional
organisation such as the 27 member EU should accede to TAC is a verdict
which shows that the inherent values of ASEAN are not yet obsolete. It
was also in consonance with these modalities enshrined in the “ASEAN
way’ that the ASEAN had been issuing a joint communiqué at the end of
its meetings, and over for the last 45 years the consistent practice of
issuing a joint statement has assumed the importance of being a
‘customary communiqué’ in harmony with the expression of its motto of
“one voice, one destiny, one community” articulating its shared
strategic interests even if in a symbolic way.
This normative construction of the ASEAN
found itself in a critical situation at the July Phnom Penh Summit, when
the grouping failed to issue the expected joint communiqué. It failed
because of the external and polarizing influences of China and the
United States on the South China Sea dispute in particular. The US is
ASEAN’s relatively new partner while China is the traditional regional
bigwig with which Southeast Asia has deep historical and, essentially,
hierarchical, political, cultural and continuing extended economic
linkages. The simmering tensions between China and four ASEAN
members—Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei—on account of their
overlapping and competing claims of territorial sovereignty and maritime
rights in the South China Sea2 is the issue that is thrusting the US
and China into a potential face-off with unintended irreversible damages
for the region in the offing.
The first victim seems to be the
ASEAN itself for this was the first time in 45 years that a joint
communiqué was not issued because of disagreements over the text.
Philippines Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario insisted that his
country’s recent naval skirmishes with China in the Scarborough
Shoal/Huayang be included in the text, while Vietnam wanted the mention
of its dispute with China over the Paracel and Spratly Islands. The
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen refused to include a mention of these
disputes in the text, since these are primarily bilateral in nature and
could not be portrayed as a problem between China and ASEAN as a bloc.
The exercise of preparing 18 drafts3 by the Indonesian Foreign Minister
Marty Natalegawa could not muster the minimal consensus necessary.
Cambodia was accused of buckling under Chinese pressure and not
including any reference to the disputes in the communiqué, while
Philippines was blamed for being excessively “blunt” and overly
“un-ASEAN”4 emboldened as it was by its alliance with the US and recent
US statements about providing the country support for enhancing the
capability of its maritime presence. The US expression of support for
the Philippines was aimed at strengthening “the Pacific nations to
defend and secure themselves”; in other words, a cog in the strategy of
“rebalancing” towards Asia, which was re-emphasised by US Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta in his June 2012 speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue.
The ASEAN’s failure in not
issuing the communiqué has invited a plethora of alarming projections of
being a “significant watershed in ASEAN’s history”, its “unprecedented
failure”, a “high-profile failure”, and ASEAN’s silence exaggerated as
the voice of its death knell. Far from being the cause of its imminent
demise or becoming irrelevant, and even though the incident is bound to
go down in the annals of ASEAN as the year of omission, this lapse only
accentuates the importance of keeping and making ASEAN strong, albeit
bringing forth the need to hone its diplomatic skills to stay afloat in
the rough waters of any intra-ASEAN divergence and retain its historic
neutrality by circumventing dominance either by the US or China. In
fact, the diplomatic impasse within the ASEAN will act like a prism to
reflect the dangers to all the stakeholders alike that there are limited
advantages in creating a divided and polarized ASEAN.
To contain the damage, Foreign
Minister Marty Natalegawa at the behest of the Indonesian President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono conducted an intensive shuttle diplomacy to
restore ASEAN unity. He subsequently accomplished a common ground on the
release of the statement of ‘six-point principles’ on July 20, 2012.
These include the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of
Parties in South China Sea (DOC) 2002, the support for the guidelines of
the DOC in 2011, the need for the early conclusion of a regional code
of conduct on the South China Sea, the full respect for the universally
recognized principles of international law including the 1982 United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the continued
exercise of self-restraint and non-use of force by all parties, and the
peaceful resolution of conflicts in accordance with universally
recognized principles of international law including the 1982 UNCLOS.5
If China has been unreasonably
belligerent and uncompromising, then the US has not been less bellicose
either. The US has taken recourse to a “relentless charm offensive” that
could “polarise the region if countries succumb to superpower’s
wooing”. On the other hand, China has abandoned the charm offensive and
acts more like a persistent exasperating exhibitionist of its muscle
power which forces the affected ASEAN nations to make a difficult
choice. It is well-understood that Hillary Clinton had decided much in
advance that “Southeast Asia, specifically ASEAN, will serve as the
fulcrum for a long-term Asia strategy”6 and she has brought the US
closer to Asia. An editorial in a major newspaper of Thailand has
highlighted that “If US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wants to
leave a positive legacy in our region, she must make sure that her
constant presence, smile and speeches do not further divide ASEAN and
cause discord with other major powers and among countries” as this
“closeness has been too close for comfort because some countries have
lost their strategic balance.”7 In its desirous and plausible transition
to becoming a rule based multilateral security forum, ASEAN is bound to
encounter multifarious challenges but the mettle of its resilience is
harder than an eggshell.8 Nevertheless, in ASEAN’s on-going efforts
toward building the ASEAN Community by 2015, it has no better option
than to employ its own self-engineered glue in building a binding
community in its region. The direct and the indirect contrasting
machinations of both the US and China left their mark on this ASEAN
Summit but the onus of not escalating tensions in the region equally
rests with both of them.
Preeti Nalwa is a Ph.D.
candidate in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi.
She is currently a Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellow and also a
Non-Resident Kelly Fellow at the Pacific Forum, CSIS.
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1. “The EU accedes to Treaty
of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia”, available at
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/131708.pdf.
2. China
claims all of the South China Sea demarcated by a “nine-dashed” line
dating back to the 1940’s when the Nationalist government was in power.
It opposes any “internationalization” of the dispute and instead prefers
bilateral mutual negotiations. The US intervention in the South China
Sea dispute is meant to secure its national interest in freedom of
navigation and it was initiated by Secretary Hillary Clinton’s statement
at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Hanoi, July 2010.
3. The
Asahi Shimbum, “‘ASEAN Way’ founders in South China Sea”, July 17, 2012,
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/south_east_asia/AJ201207170105
4. Sabam
Siagian, Insight: “The un-ASEAN way of treating unresolved issues”, The
Jakarta Post, July 16, 2012,
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/07/16/the-un-asean-way-treating-unresolved-issues.html
5. Aurea
Calica, “Asean consensus a step forward”, The Philippine Star, July 22,
2012,
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=830009&publicationSubCategoryId=63
6.
Ernest Z. Bower, “Hillary Clinton’s Asia Sojourn”, Center for Strategic
& International Studies, July 19, 2011,
http://csis.org/publication/hillary-clintons-asia-sojourn
7. The
Nation, “Clinton’s legacy for Asia hangs in the balance”, July 17, 2012,
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Clintons-legacy-for-Asia-hangs-in-the-balance-30186292.html
8.
Aileen S.P. Baviera, “Putting the ASEAN Humpty Dumpty back together
again”, GMA News, June 22, 2012,
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/266302/opinion/putting-the-asean-humpty-dumpty-back-together-again