The US, ASEAN and China: a new alignment emerging?

In November of last year, President Barack Obama pledged that he would be a “Pacific President.” While the audience in Suntory Hall may have wondered about the content of that statement few in attendance doubted the sincerity or conviction of the President. As relationships between the US, ASEAN and China have been re-drawn, especially after latest series of ASEAN hosted diplomatic meeting in Hanoi, the meaning of a Pacific President is starting to become clearer. Three sites of change in particular warrant special mention; the East Asia Summit, the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula. In all three cases, the United States and ASEAN states are becoming closer, while China is finding itself distanced from decision-making. Put more directly, the early 21^st century phenomena of China-ASEAN relations being closer that US-ASEAN is reversing itself.

This realignment can firstly be seen in the United States advancing its claim for a seat at the East Asian Summit. Last week the US received an expression of general support from the Foreign Ministers after the Informal Consultation Meeting and Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo later indicated that ASEAN has already decided to include the US in the EAS. Hilary Clinton’s determination to return to Vietnam in October for the EAS together with Obama being scheduled to attend the next year’s EAS in Indonesia suggests that the US is confident that its accession is assured over the medium term. As a part of this process, ASEAN Ministers also welcomed the decision to include the US in the first ASEAN Defence Minister's Plus with Eight Dialogue Partners scheduled for October.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the only player to not greet increased US involvement in the region warmly was China. China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was quoted as saying that China "took notes with open attitude" of the ASEAN proposal for an expanded EAS and "look[ed] forward for consultations" with ASEAN on subject (the Nation, July 22). But while China is dissatisfied with the direction the EAS is taking; this is a battle it already knows it has lost. As Wu Jianmin (a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Group) observed last year, ‘We know that China could not stop the US if it really wants to join the EAS.’ Indeed, according the declaration establishing the EAS, membership is determined by ASEAN alone – and while China is influential it simply can not veto a proposal (unlike in UNSC).

Moreover, China has seen the US and ASEAN draw closer on an issues of major interest to it, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Secretary of State Clinton’s identification of this issue as a “pivot” of regional security brings the United States back as a player after more than a decade of diplomatic passivity (to China’s notable discomfort).

The emerging US-ASEAN-China realignment can also be seen in Clinton’s proposal (together with 12 other Asian nations, including the host Vietnam) for a dispute resolution mechanism to be established. Such a mechanism would build on (or over) the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea signed between ASEAN and the PRC. This Declaration can essentially be interpreted as a response to the 1992 ‘Law on the Territorial Waters and continuous Area‘, and reflects an agreement to shelve the issue rather than resolve it – hence the lack of a dispute resolution mechanism. ASEAN efforts to move from ‘shelving’ to ‘resolving’ this issue have been systematically thwarted by China, and so it unsurprising that China would again register dissatisfaction. China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi noting, “turning the bilateral issue into an international, or multilateral one, would only worsen the situation and add difficulties to resolving the issue.” (WSJ China rebuts Clinton). Perhaps Yang meant to add “for China.”?

China’s 1947 Map: basis of the South China Sea Claim: fat dotted lines as limit of territory.

Lastly, this re-alignment can be seen in US-South Korea relations and posturing in the ARF over the sinking of the South Korean corvette, the Cheonan. Again China and the US found themselves in opposite corners over this issue, China reportedly working to remove references to the sinking as a North Korean attack. This disagreement over wording caused adoption of the Chairman’s statement to be delayed a day. Korea’s growing frustration with China’s role in diplomatically supporting the North has, similarly to ASEAN, caused South Korea to look to its traditional security provider, the US. This week’s war games off the Korean peninsula, while clearly focussed on the North, have caused concerns in Beijing. Yet notwithstanding the repositioning of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier the George Washington on the East side of the peninsula, the US and Korea have been willing to disregard China’s warnings. Intriguingly, Japanese officers are observing the joint U.S.-Korean exercises.

In conclusion, a realignment is underway in East Asia. Increasingly, ASEAN (and Korea) are moving closer to the geographically distant US, while China is finding itself surprising distant from its neighbours.

The ASEAN regional forum is a dead-end, but so what?

I have recently been examining the reports and minutes from the ASEAN Regional Forum’s Inter-Sessional Group on Confidence Building and Preventative Diplomacy, the ISG-CBMs. This group is the litmus test of mutual trust in East Asia. More than that, it is window into the thinking of the members’ nations on the prospect of regional inter-state violence, up to and including, war.

While East Asia’s recent moves towards more and deeper regionalism, driven in part by uneasiness inspired by the Bush administration’s unilateralism and inattention to the region, would suggest a greater level of trust between the regional countries – the results of the ISG-CBMs are less than inspiring. Indeed, on reading what was being claimed as a CBM, I lost some confidence that Asia could learn from Europe and find its way to a true peace predicated on trust rather than a cold, or at least cool, peace based on the US hegemonic stabilizer and functional elite relations overlying popular fear and mistrust.

Indeed, the flurry of regionalism at the economic level is perhaps due in large part to the inability to achieve more difficult political cooperation. This should not be surprising. The rush towards Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in East Asia is one such example. Greater political cooperation would envisage a single regional FTA, rather than the so-called “noodle bowl” (some say network, others hodge-podge) of bilateral trade agreements now crisscrossing the region. Likewise, I have already discussed trust in regional financial arrangements.

But returning to the ISG-CBMs, I will quote at length from the text of the 2009 report – at which the group discussed the future of the ARF.

“Thailand briefed the Meeting on the development of the draft ARF Vision Statement…Some delegations expressed their view that the Vision Statement should be a strong statement focusing on… concrete initiatives that ARF should undertake…[Other] members noted that the Vision Statement should [be]…a declaration of ARF principles and …not a plan of action.”

There was no agreement reached. Let me repeat, there was no agreement reached on the Vision Statement. That means, there is no shared Vision for the ARF. But with no shared vision there can be no future for the ARF, only an institutional dead-end. Indeed, the fact this is debate is still going on fifteen (15) years after the creation of the ARF, suggests that the ARF has been in arrested development for a while. But so what? Does it matter greatly the ARF has been unable to advance a vision, and in particular to advance its CBMs agenda?

Yes, it matters. The failure of the ARF (and specifically the ISG-CBMs) to progress military transparency in a manner similar to the Helsinki Accords of 1975 is arguably the most important factor driving the Japan into the arms of America, and in projecting itself into the regional by proposing and signing mini-lateral security agreements (such as with Australia and India). These closed shops will do nothing for the Chinese sense of national security; indeed, it is precisely this kind activity which feeds the regional security dilemma. Of course, Chinese resistance within the ARF was a factor no doubt in the inability of the ARF to engender habits of cooperation (ie diffuse reciprocity) and reach common political vision. But once another major regional player, such as Japan, defaults to closed-door, zero-sum type external balancing, then trust, and peace, become increasingly unlikely.

So yes, it matters.