HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR ASEAN CHAIR
Despite ‘strategic heft’, analysts say conflicts like Myanmar, South China Sea will remain intractable
New Asean chair Indonesia faces high expectations to revitalise the region during its tenure, but even with its “strategic heft” analysts say conflicts such as Myanmar and the South China Sea will remain intractable.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit last month that Indonesia – often seen as the bloc’s de facto leader – would focus on growth, inclusivity and economic sustainability for the region in 2023.
In August, Malaysia’s former PM minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob expressed hope Indonesia would be able to better address regional and global issues involving Asean countries because of its influence and strong economic cooperation with its 10 members.
But Jefferson Ng, associate research fellow at the Singaporebased S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said breakthroughs relating to the Myanmar political crisis or the code of conduct in the South China Sea “will be difficult to expect”.
“Asean’s collective-action problems are well known,” Ng said.
Since the Myanmar military seized power in a coup last year, Asean has called for an immediate end to violence against civilians, and urged discussions involving all stakeholders, but these have been ignored by the junta.
Ng noted a statement issued at the Asean summit reaffirmed that leaders would make the final decision on the implementation of a peace plan, known as the Five Point Consensus, even when it cannot be achieved without the junta’s cooperation.
“I am cautiously optimistic that this means Myanmar will not be able to stonewall regional efforts to address the crisis,” Ng said.
As for the negotiations on the code of conduct in the South China Sea which will resume next year, Ng said these would continue to revolve around issues relating to the legal status and geographical scope of the agreement.
“These stemmed from fundamentally different starting points,” Ng said, adding that Widodo was likely to “invest very little political capital, if at all” in trying to reach an agreement.
Some observers have argued that unless the code covers the entire South China Sea, it would be meaningless, adding that its legal status remains undefined. Most Asean members also want the code to be binding, something China rejects.
Sharon Seah, senior fellow and coordinator at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, noted “the seed of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership [RCEP] was planted” under Indonesia’s chairmanship in 2011.
Signed in November 2020, the RCEP is a free-trade agreement including all Asean members as well as Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, making it the largest such bloc in history.
As a non-claimant state in the South China Sea and also the largest Asean member “with strategic heft”, Ng said there were expectations Indonesia would be able to call for progress on the code of conduct, negotiations for which have stalled amid the pandemic. Among Asean states, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have competing claims over the South China Sea with Beijing.
Ng said Indonesia had a good
opportunity as 2023 chair to reinvigorate a regional organisation which has been widely seen as weak and disunited, amid divisions over Myanmar’s coup and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The most logical regional reforms involve pushing through reforms to the Asean Charter to strengthen the Asean Secretariat, and developing procedures for regional action when consensus is not possible,” Ng said.
“Given Indonesia’s traditional role as the de facto leader of Asean”, many leaders in Southeast
Asia “will follow where President Jokowi chooses to lead”, Ng said.
Similar to the recent G20 meeting which Indonesia hosted, Ng said Jakarta was likely to leverage its chairmanship to launch regional economic initiatives closely aligned with its domestic economic priorities, such as in infrastructure development and green transition.
Seah said that implementing the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) would be important to Indonesia during its chairmanship, referring to the platform with which Asean hopes to engage stakeholders in the AsiaPacific and Indian Ocean regions.
“Incidentally, the AOIP is also the only Indo-Pacific concept that is acceptable to every partner, including China,” Seah said.
Apart from Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, which is aimed at countering China’s influence, other countries that have come up with similar strategies include Canada, France, South Korea and Japan.