ASEAN: Further apart, not closer together
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will soon release its joint communique, as it does every year at the conclusion of its annual summit. This year, the statement will emphasize unity and celebrate the adoption of emergency hotlines and the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea between ASEAN states and China. Notably absent from the release will be any mention of the ruling that invalidates China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, despite Vietnam's and the Philippines' requests for its inclusion.
That it was excluded is not all that surprising. The bloc prides itself on consensus diplomacy, allowing each member state to veto the actions of others if they deem those actions harmful to their interests. But the appearance of unity belies a much deeper incoherence. Different stances over the South China Sea and China have, at least twice, placed ASEAN meetings on the edge of complete failure. And it is those stances, along with inherent geopolitical disparities in the region, that keep pushing ASEAN member states further apart rather than closer together.
Southeast Asia is where the interests of great powers meet. China and India have coveted the region since antiquity. European powers laid claim to it during the colonial era. And, more recently, powers such as the United States, Japan and Russia have vied for influence there as well. It is little wonder, then, that the states of the region, largely unable to counter such advances on their own, sought strength through unity. Unity, it turns out, was hard to come by, given the region's physical barriers, unique political systems and sharp cultural, ethnic and religious differences. Unity was fine and well, but most states were concerned that it would come at the expense of sovereignty.
ASEAN sought to allay those fears in three ways. First, it harnessed the nationalism and autonomy of its member states by adhering to a policy of noninterference in the affairs of its member states. Second, it stressed cohesion on regional political and security matters through consensus. Third, it came to prioritize economic growth. Accordingly, it established itself as an entity through which member states could pursue cooperation with outside economies, binding themselves to one another in the process.
The rise of China, however, changed the way ASEAN thought of itself. It forced member states to rethink their positions beyond the boundary of the bloc and to weigh in on China's economic benefits as well as its security aspirations in the South China Sea. China's rise also changed how outside powers thought of the region. Japan, Russia and India have expanded their security footprints in Southeast Asia, and the United States has since allocated more resources to the Asia-Pacific to enhance military and diplomatic ties. The competing interests yield new configurations within and outside ASEAN as countries adapt to the changes and seek alignment.
The new configurations are growing apparent along the region's geopolitical fault line. The effects of China can be seen most visibly between ASEAN's maritime states and its land-based states. Landbased states continue to absorb Chinese capital and accept its economic harassment so that they are not seen as hostile to Chinese interests. Maritime states increasingly are in search of outside cooperation on the economic, defense and security fronts to counterbalance China. Inside the region, this difference also persists in the face of their diverging interests on multiple key issues — from the utility of international waters to the way each member state deals with economic integration and trade mechanisms. Each, with the involvement or exploitation by the outside power, threaten to undermine ASEAN's unity and centrality.
But change may yet be underway. Vietnam is leading the charge to replace unanimous voting with majority voting. (Indonesia has recently proved itself willing to go outside the bloc to achieve its goals.) Whether or not ASEAN abandons consensus voting (which would require a change of its charter), it has already skirted the issue through smaller initiatives involving subsets of ASEAN countries. But all of this points to a core weakness of ASEAN: Its insistence on consensus prevents it from confronting the geopolitical realities of the region.