Questioning an ASEAN 'united front' on the South China Sea

I am terribly embarrassed by my lack of postings lately… It’s not that SEA has grown one jot less interesting. Au contraire. But I’ve been finishing a book, and it turns out this is a terribly time-intensive activity. And other KPIs don't leave the building while you're busy on something major.

To break the drought, however, I want to draw attention to this piece on the South China Sea by Xunpeng Shi:

‘ASEAN should be a neutral, transparent and fair platform for both sides to resolve disputes peacefully, and should not take a biased stand toward its member states. By promoting this first platform, ASEAN has the potential to gain credit from member states and the international community, while increasing its profile in the international arena for tackling regional affairs.’

I think this is right. I’ve always had my doubts about the view that ASEAN’s states ought to march in lockstep on everything.

Sheldon Simon argued a little while ago that ‘ASEAN’s integration continues to be problematic, and ability to speak with a single authoritative voice on politico-security matters remains uncertain and at best premature’, with the result that ‘US reliance on a strong ASEAN lead for multilateral Asian security issues might well be reconsidered’.

But how ‘integrated’ does ASEAN need to be in order to play a useful regional role? A broad range of observers would certainly welcome greater economic integration within the region, as well as a deeper consensus on human rights and governance issues. These aims are all expressed in ASEAN's community-building plans. But is ‘ability to speak with a single authoritative voice on politico-security matters’ actually always an asset? Surely it depends on what that single authoritative voice would say?

ASEAN’s most telling defence of its driving-seat position is that the organization is non-threatening. This inoffensiveness is made up of several facets. Part of it is ASEAN’s intrinsic make-up – it is not a great power, and not an alliance.

But a key factor is also that ASEAN as an organization has traditionally practised the kind of balancing that engages all the major powers, and exclusively favours none of them. This policy has made an important contribution to regional peace and confidence-building. If the evolution of a ‘single authoritative voice’ also equated with an unequivocal leaning in the direction of any one particular power, this would not bode well.

Individually, Southeast Asia’s states have also broadly practised this balancing policy. Some have recently engaged in a recalibration of that balance over the issue of the South China Sea, but even now, no state wants all its eggs in one basket.

Part of the reason ASEAN looks unthreatening, therefore, is precisely this variety. Its various components have politico-security feet in many different camps, and may at any given time be leaning in different directions and at different angles. ASEAN is not like a solid mass of colour, as it were – it is more like one of those shimmering patterns that looks slightly different in different lights. And that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. What we lose in unity and predictability, we arguably gain in strategic and diplomatic flexibility. Such an entity is far more likely to forestall a dangerous regional binary.

UPDATE 15 June: From the title alone (‘Following the ASEAN tune’), it sounds as though Farish Noor is at odds with the above article. Their conclusions, however, are actually rather similar. For Xunpeng Shi, ‘the question is whether Asean would gain by pinning China as its opponent. The answer is unlikely to be positive. Asean should be a fair, neutral and transparent facilitator of peace, rather than an aggressive opponent against China, when it comes to resolving the South China Sea dispute.’

For Noor, too, ‘For ASEAN to be able to present a united face to the world, some cohesion and cooperation is necessary from all member states... Breaking ranks and brokering bilateral deals with other countries while neglecting common ASEAN concerns is not the way to move forward. And at the moment, it is highly doubtful if the rest of ASEAN wishes to be dragged into a conflict with China, which happens to be the biggest trading partner of several ASEAN economies. Post-2015, Asean will face a new era where its collective identity will be tested. Already, the region is witness to the resurgence of China, India and the United States. Will ASEAN be able to hold its own and maintain some sense of common purpose and identity? Yes, but only if we dance by the ASEAN tune and think of ASEAN’s future as our own.’

The bottom line: ASEAN nations should work together. Of course. But not with the purpose of ganging up against China.