South China Sea dispute: The three challenges to ASEAN’s position

*South China Sea dispute: Three challenges to ASEAN’s position*

5 July 2021

Over the last three decades, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been a major factor in maintaining peace and order in the South China Sea (SCS). ASEAN's track record of persuading China to accept multilateral negotiation as a basis of dispute settlement in the mid-1990s, and nudging Beijing to accommodate its urge to expedite the consultation process of the Code of Conduct (COC) in 2013, revealed that the organisation could exercise agency to make effective policy initiatives even when facing its powerful northern neighbour. However, the matter in question is not ASEAN’s capacity to “speak in one voice”, but its willingness to do so. The ongoing developments in the SCS suggest a rather pessimistic view that ASEAN’s strength in the dispute might be in decline.

The centrifugal forces behind Cambodia and Laos

Cambodia and Laos, as non-claimants without direct interests in the SCS, have been heavily dependent on Chinese aid and investment, driving them to lean towards China’s position to secure their national interests. With the disastrous economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on both of them, these trends are unlikely to reduce any time soon. In 2012, Cambodia, the then ASEAN chair, was reportedly responsible for blocking proposals from the Philippines and Vietnam — both claimants to the SCS dispute — for stronger language over China’s assertive behaviour toward Scarborough Shoal in the joint communique following a meeting of ASEAN Ministers.

The incident was later dubbed a “fiasco” as ASEAN members had never before failed to issue a joint communique. Likewise, in June 2016 ASEAN foreign ministers were compelled to “abort” a joint media statement — which referred to their “serious concerns” over tensions surrounding the building of artificial islands and military facilities in the disputed area following the Special China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held in Kunming. Media reports from The Straits Times suggested that China had lobbied Cambodia and Laos, convincing the latter to make a last-minute U-turn, opposing the release of the joint statement. The following month, during the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Cambodia allegedly blocked a reference to the Permanent Court of Arbitration's (PCA) Arbitral Award, which rejected the legality of China's nine-dash line claims. Once again, the incident reflected ASEAN's internal discord. At this year’s Nikkei forum, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen praised the closeness of Sino-Cambodian relations, stating “if I don’t rely on China, who will I rely on?” while simultaneously denying plans to host China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy at the Ream Naval Base. Cambodia is set to chair ASEAN in 2022 and given its track record at the ASEAN meetings, no one should overlook the risk of another ‘fiasco’ over its unity.

ASEAN members such as Indonesia might find themselves mired in a quagmire: recognising a regime lambasted for its terrible human rights record might save ASEAN unity but could draw further condemnation from the West and international media; rejecting the junta might jeopardise regional unity and delay the long-awaited COC.

Likewise, Vietnam’s special relationship with Laos is increasingly overshadowed by China’s economic clout in the landlocked country. China, the largest aid donor and investor in Laos, has recently gained control of the latter’s power grid as the Laotian government desperately sought to mitigate deep economic concerns brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon taking office this March, Laos' President, Thongloun Sisoulith, immediately appointed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s former schoolmate as the presidential office minister, signalling his intention to strengthen ties with Beijing. It remains unknown whether Cambodia and Laos would exchange ASEAN’s regional unity for continued access to China’s cash flows in the future. Given the organisation’s vulnerability to extra-regional influence, such asymmetric dependence should worry the SCS claimant states.

Division among the claimant states

While claimant states themselves have not always been in alignment over the SCS disputes, they — including Indonesia, a non-claimant — jointly protested against China’s claims in a series of note verbale exchanges last year. Except for Brunei, all ASEAN claimant states openly challenged Beijing’s attempt to advance its SCS claim based on ‘historic rights’ and reaffirmed the 2016 Arbitral Award in their ways. Even Brunei, a “silent claimant” in the SCS disputes, issued a rare statement stressing the importance of UNCLOS and “the rules and principles of international law” for resolving the issue. Nevertheless, this apparent convergence of interests may be easily undermined by intramural differences between these interested parties. These problems include illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) activities, particularly those conducted by Vietnamese and Malaysian vessels within the jurisdictional waters of other parties. For instance, more than 20 Vietnamese ships fished illegally in Indonesia’s North Natuna Sea from June to October last year, with some being arrested for stealing fish within Indonesia’s territorial waters. In the past, these fishing vessels — especially when they resisted — might be attacked and destroyed by the patrol units of these littoral states, thus fueling diplomatic tensions detrimental to confidence and trust-building efforts between these interested parties. It is encouraging to note that Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia have reached bilateral agreements on combating IUU and having set up a multilateral ASEAN-wide network dedicated to strengthening information exchange over illegal fishing activities. But these efforts will take time to bear fruit.

Meanwhile, the Philippines’ strategic ambivalence in the SCS further complicates ASEAN’s position. In contrast with the fervently nationalistic sentiments prevailing in Filipino society, which have called for a more assertive posture in the SCS (aka the West Philippine Sea), the Duterte administration regularly sends confusing signals to China, the United States, other ASEAN members and its domestic constituency. For example, President Duterte affirmed the PCA ruling awards as “part of international law, beyond compromise, and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish, or abandon” in a pre-recorded speech tailored for the United Nations General Assembly in September 2020. Seven months later, he derided the award as “a piece of paper” that should be thrown “in the waste bin”, thereby adopting China’s position following the release of the arbitral award.

Though Duterte is well known for being inconsistent in foreign policy matters (indeed, this is not the first time he dismissed the ruling), the damage is far from negligible. Duterte’s inconsistent position has not only seen him contradict cabinet ministers over China’s presence in the disputed waters, but it is also unclear whether he would forsake other ASEAN claimants’ positions on the SCS as part of the COC negotiations in exchange for Chinese patronage and investment. While China and Vietnam have disagreed over the prospect of joint military exercises with “countries from outside the region”, the Philippines appeared to have withheld its support to Vietnam when Duterte prohibited any joint military exercises beyond its territorial waters. Although the Philippines’ Foreign Secretary has verbally committed that “the Western powers must be present in the South China Sea as a balancer”, this appears to have been undermined considering officials are now banned from discussing SCS disputes in public. With presidential elections due to take place in the Philippines next year, this might yet lead to more uncertainty about the country’s future SCS policy.

Further uncertainty after the Myanmar coup

The gloomy status in Myanmar poses one final challenge to ASEAN’s strategy. Myanmar is due to take over from the Philippines as country coordinator for ASEAN-China relations in late 2021 (until 2024), implying that Naypyidaw is likely to oversee the critical moments of the COC negotiation process. Provided that the country coordinator enjoys a mandate to represent ASEAN to bargain with China, the Myanmar government could exploit the leverage to achieve its policy objectives. Having ousted the democratically-elected members of parliament by staging a coup this February, the military junta in Myanmar is still facing a legitimacy crisis both at home and abroad. To break the political deadlock, the junta’s leadership might seize this opportunity to request formal recognition from its ASEAN peers. Worse still, vocal ASEAN members such as Indonesia might find themselves mired in a quagmire: recognising a regime lambasted for its terrible human rights record might save ASEAN unity but could draw further condemnation from the West and international media; rejecting the junta might jeopardise regional unity and delay the long-awaited COC. However ASEAN chooses to act vis-a-vis the Myanmar crisis, it is certain to have ramifications far beyond Myanmar itself.

Without unity, ASEAN cannot speak with one voice when seeking to fend off external pressure regardless of whether this comes from China, the United States, or other major powers. Without unity, ASEAN moves further away from its aspiration of maintaining regional autonomy. Nevertheless, whether these predictions come to pass depends on the resolve of ASEAN members to preserve their regional autonomy. If ASEAN states fail to embed regional interests into their foreign policy decision-making calculus, the fragmentation over SCS disputes might dictate the future of this regional organisation.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Kalvin Fung is the PhD Candidate in the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University. His research interest centres around ASEAN regionalism and the domestic politics of the Southeast Asian nations. Image credit: US Mission to ASEAN.