ASEAN eyes balance amid US moves
Region will resist calls from Washington to join a political game aimed at Beijing, experts say
Member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations want to find a balance between Washington and Beijing to pursue development, but the US is drawing a dividing line, experts said following a US-ASEAN Special Summit.
Commenting on the summit hosted by Washington during May 12-13, Jack Midgley, principal of global consultancy Midgley & Co and an adjunct associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, said what the ASEAN countries are signaling is that they want balance. The summit “is very much about geopolitical competition”, he said.
“In many ways, one of the hopeful things we’re seeing here is that this competition is being framed as an economic competition.”
Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, said ASEAN countries “would continue to find a balance point” between the US and China following the summit. One of the US’ goals is to “set its own standards as an aggression”, and “at the end of the day, it started drawing dividing lines in Asia”, he said.
“It is about development, and development is best done when it is not done in a zero-sum framework, when it is done in a win-win framework.”
The US created an image of new great power competition, which is unnecessary, Gupta said.
US President Joe Biden on May 12 kicked off the special ASEAN summit, in a move widely seen as an attempt by Washington to pull members of the bloc into its camp amid the RussiaUkraine crisis.
As Biden welcomed leaders and representatives from nine ASEAN nations, the White House announced that the US would commit to more than $150 million to be invested in Southeast Asia’s climate, maritime and public health infrastructure.
But Biden knows that finding consensus with ASEAN members on Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine could prove to be difficult, experts said.
Midgley said the tone toward China at the two-day summit and the remarks in relation to the country were “moderate”, and that there are “a lot of good reasons to take a moderate tone”. “I think the American government is going to set a more balanced tone toward China, particularly with the conflict raging in Ukraine, with the current COVID issues that our Chinese friends are dealing with … and the issues around the supply chain.”
Analysts said the US attempts to court support among ASEAN leaders in pursuit of its geopolitical interests are unlikely to gain traction.
ASEAN leaders are more willing to emphasize their economic interests, analysts said, adding that the bloc’s recovery-focused members always put ASEAN centrality at the forefront while deflecting any attempt to draw them into a US sphere of influence.
Azmi Hassan, a senior research fellow at Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research, said that the US has been unable to exert pressure on ASEAN over the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with most of the 10-member bloc abstaining from voting in favor of a resolution to suspend Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council last month.
He also told Xinhua News Agency that the US will find itself unable to make any headway among ASEAN members, especially after Malaysia and Indonesia voiced concerns over the AUKUS trilateral security partnership involving Australia and Britain.
“ASEAN centrality and nonalignment would pretty much remain the same (even after the ASEAN-US summit),” said Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. ASEAN will continue to rely on both the US and China for security and economic interests, Oh said.
Punchada Sirivunnabood, an associate professor at Mahidol University in Bangkok, said the summit may be one way for the Biden administration to drum up support for the Indo-Pacific Outlook. However, in dealing with ASEAN, one should also look closely at how each member country deals with either the US or China, she said.
Filomeno Sta. Ana III, coordinator of the Manila think tank Action for Economic Reforms, said ASEAN’s view of non-alignment is “notional”, and any position of ASEAN with regard to the US and China will be based on “regional interest”, which “represents the various national interests” of ASEAN members.
The two-day summit in Washington ended with the two sides committing to establish an ASEAN-US Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that is “meaningful, substantive and mutually beneficial” to the 10th ASEAN-US Summit in November.
It is “normal for ASEAN to have various arrangements to improve trade, investments (and) security” in the region, said Michael Ricafort, chief economist at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in Manila.
The special ASEAN summit came before Biden’s trip to the Republic of Korea and Japan — his first visit to Asia as president, which kicks off on May 20. During the trip, Biden will hold talks with those countries’ leaders and also meet with leaders from the Quad, made up of Australia, India, Japan and the US.