ASEAN enters 2023 in a moment of crisis
ASEAN enters 2023 in a moment of crisis
WRITTEN BY HUNTER MARSTON
17 January 2023
As ASEAN leaders decamped from the annual East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh in November, the group’s internal divisions and idiosyncrasies were on full display. ASEAN’s detractors have started questioning whether the return of great power competition is rendering the organisation irrelevant. To reclaim a central role in regional and international affairs, ASEAN must reconcile its internal divisions while leveraging its unique diversity and consensus-based approach.
ASEAN cannot overcome its internal diversity or speak with just one voice — nor should we expect it to. There is no unified Southeast Asian position on Sino-US rivalry, thorny questions of democracy versus authoritarianism, or the coup in Myanmar. ASEAN is a multifaceted grouping and serves as a bridging mechanism to bring its ten members into dialogue in search of collective responses to myriad regional issues.
A divided ASEAN in a time of crisis
As Indonesia takes over the chairmanship for the next year, ASEAN stands at a crossroads. The current moment represents the most consequential crisis the bloc has faced since the Cold War when Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia and the withdrawal of US forces from Thailand threatened an epochal shift toward Chinese and Soviet dominance of the region.
Today’s crises include a raging civil war in Myanmar and ASEAN’s failure to bring about a political solution based on the Five Point Consensus agreed in April 2021; the increasingly stark divide between democratic and authoritarian states within the bloc (exacerbated by disagreement over how to respond to the coup in Myanmar); systemic pressures associated with the Sino-US rivalry; and the perpetual struggle to assert ASEAN centrality in the face of unrelenting forces pulling regional states into opposing camps.
ASEAN will never fully overcome its inherent diversity, which it should marshal as a strength and point of pride.
The extreme violence unleashed by the Myanmar military’s misguided 2021 coup has created a persistent headache for ASEAN leaders. Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan has expressed his country’s frustrations with the junta’s unwillingness to demonstrate any progress on the Five Point Consensus, which calls for the cessation of violence followed by negotiations between all parties involved. Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah has argued that the Five Point Consensus is no longer viable and called on ASEAN to adopt stronger enforcement mechanisms in response to the Myanmar military’s atrocities. Even Cambodia’s strongman Hun Sen has voiced his impatience with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Yet, ASEAN has refrained from suspending Myanmar due to opposition by more authoritarian members such as Thailand and Vietnam.
In a welcome departure from the status quo, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has hinted at the possibility of inviting representatives from Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), insisting that it does not need the military’s permission to do so. At the recent summit in Phnom Penh, regional leaders called upon foreign ministers to come up with a new implementation plan with "measurable indicators” and a “specific timeline”. This has raised expectations for Indonesia’s chairmanship to demonstrate progress.
ASEAN members’ varying responses to the crisis in Myanmar reveal the fault lines inherent to a bloc of its size. Although it is important not to overstate them, these divisions primarily fall along two lines: Continental versus maritime Southeast Asia and authoritarian versus democratic. By and large, the more democratic and maritime states of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore (four of the original five founding members — minus Thailand, which is ruled by a military junta itself) have been more willing to include stronger language on the South China Sea and call for Myanmar’s return to democracy.
Conversely, mainland Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand, prefer to avoid discussion of sensitive topics such as democracy and prefer a softer line on China’s actions in the South China Sea. Vietnam, which shares a lengthy land border with China and whose security is directly affected by overlapping territorial claims in the East Sea, has advocated for a legally-binding Code of Conduct for maritime disputes. ASEAN’s decision to admit “in principle” Timor-Leste as the group’s eleventh member this November will reinforce ASEAN’s democratic credentials. However, it is unclear how Dili’s participation will contribute to meaningful debate on intractable issues such as the Code of Conduct, let alone wider geopolitical concerns regarding great power competition between the United States and China.
Responding to great power politics
ASEAN leaders share growing concerns about the US-China rivalry, which they see as the paramount threat to regional stability. Many fear that Southeast Asia is once again becoming an arena for great power conflict with the potential to derail decades of peace and prosperity since the Cold War (which was never really “cold” in their experience).
Yet regional experts acknowledge frustrations with ASEAN’s limited ability to respond to economic and political headwinds. Scholar Hoang Thi Ha has argued that the United States and regional allies such as Japan and Australia have opted to form minilateral groups because “their small, nimble membership holds out better prospects than ASEAN institutions in delivering tangible results and effective responses to regional security challenges”. According to Ha, the emergence of the Quad and AUKUS further “accentuate the pre-existing strategic incoherence within ASEAN in the face of Great Power competition”. Despite these concerns, US President Joe Biden declared at the recent summit in Phnom Penh that “ASEAN is the heart of [his] administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy”, reaffirming Washington’s commitment to ASEAN centrality.
Regardless of such rhetorical exercises, ASEAN centrality is increasingly under siege by centrifugal forces pulling at the group’s seams. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has posed a major threat to ASEAN’s internal cohesion. The East Asia Summit failed to issue its regular joint communique due to Russian obduracy. Singapore is the only state in the region to have implemented targeted economic sanctions against Russia following the Kremlin’s decision to invade Ukraine, and Singaporean leaders have spoken out clearly to denounce Putin’s war. By contrast, the decision by Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam to abstain from a UN vote in October rejecting Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, raised doubts about the region’s commitment to a rules-based order.
Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan acknowledged these forces of disunity in 2019. Referring to ASEAN’s Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, a policy document which promoted a unified vision in response to Quad countries’ Indo-Pacific strategies, Balakrishnan stated: “The Outlook will not stop strategic forces from pulling individual ASEAN Member States in different directions. ASEAN unity — the pre-requisite for ASEAN Centrality — will be tested. Our inherent diversity will make internal coherence difficult, but ultimately more necessary too”.
Reasserting ASEAN centrality
Overcoming structural limitations will require seriously revisiting ASEAN’s consensus-based approach. Some experts suggest Indonesia is likely to propose adopting a seven-vote threshold instead of requiring all ten members to agree on passing a measure. This would go a long way to making the institution more agile, responsive, and decisive. At the same time, ASEAN would become more credible in the eyes of critics, who denigrate the group as inactive or merely a talk shop. Some worry that Timor-Leste’s inclusion could make it even more difficult to achieve consensus.
Yet, ASEAN will never fully overcome its inherent diversity, which it should marshal as a strength and point of pride. ASEAN has managed to prevent the emergence of great power conflict and intraregional war since the end of the Cold War, when Vietnamese troops withdrew from Cambodia in 1989, paving the way for the 1991 Paris Peace Accords. In 1995, in a remarkable volte-face, ASEAN welcomed Vietnam’s accession, followed quickly by Laos and Myanmar in 1997 (not without controversy due to the military regime which held power in Yangon), and Cambodia in 1999.
While sceptics continue to cast doubt on the merits of the decision to extend membership to these authoritarian “CMLV” states, the group can still boast notable successes in recent decades. ASEAN weathered the Asian Financial Crisis by expanding intraregional trade and advancing a common currency exchange regime. More recently, the East Asia Summit has successfully brought external powers, including the US, China, Russia, Japan, and Australia, to its table, strengthening ASEAN’s convening power.
There is an old saying: “If you’re not at the table, then you’re probably on the menu”. If ASEAN cannot offer a plausible vision to external powers losing patience with “the ASEAN way” while simultaneously reassuring foot draggers within the group that it still has their interests in mind, the Association may find itself on the menu and no longer at the table in this new era of great power rivalry.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Hunter Marston is a PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations at Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs and an Adjunct Research Fellow at La Trobe Asia. He is also an Associate with 9DASHLINE. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/内閣官房内閣広報室.