JAKARTA – Southeast Asian leaders are convening in the final ASEAN Summit this year in Jakarta with a number of divisive issues ripping at the bloc’s unity, among them Myanmar’s brutal civil war and escalating tensions with China over disputed territory in the South China Sea.
In the background, the US, China and Russia are all pressing for influence vis-a-vis their superpower rivals. Foreign ministers met before the leaders’ meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
This year’s summit convenes just days after China released a controversial new ten-dash line map that not only encompasses much of the South China Sea and Taiwan, but also disputed land territories with India and Russia.
ASEAN members Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines all quickly issued diplomatic protests against China’s ever-expanding claims, which they and others argue are out of step with international law as defined by UNCLOS.
Under growing pressure to stand up to the Asian powerhouse, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr reassured his people that he “will respond” to Beijing’s new map but did not provide “operational details” during his engagements with ASEAN leaders this week.
The Philippines and Vietnam are both pressing hard for the conclusion of negotiations with China over a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, which have dragged on for decades as the push and pull of territorial disputes has intensified.
The South China Sea is not the only issue on the boil in Jarkara before leaders’ meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
Malaysia, another ASEAN founding member, called on the regional body to adopt “strong measures” to address the festering conflict in Myanmar, which has exposed deep divisions in the region and threatens spillover effects.
Similar to Western powers, Malaysia and Indonesia have sought more decisive action, including the potential expulsion of the Myanmar junta from ASEAN, even as other member states such as Thailand have maintained cordial ties with the isolated military regime.
The upshot of ASEAN’s fragmentation is the emergence of what some are referring to as “à la carte diplomacy”, with regional states pushing often contradictory positions outside of the ASEAN framework in tandem with major powers.
That likely explains why Indonesia made economics a central agenda of this year’s ASEAN meetings.
By choosing “Epicenter of Growth” as its annual theme, the Southeast Asian power hoped to highlight the emergence of the region as a new center of economic gravity rather than a hub of diplomatic dysfunction.
For the first time in a generation, ASEAN states are growing faster than China, with a rising number of multinational companies relocating their production facilities from China to Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand amid the festering Sino-American New Cold War.
After decades of relative economic boom, ASEAN has also recently emerged as China’s top export destination, increasingly eclipsing its traditional markets in the West.
According to data compiled by HSBC Holdings Plc, shipments from China to ASEAN members reached a whopping $600 billion per month this year in May, which was greater than China’s trade with the European Union and US that month.
Eager to focus on its strengths and put regional diplomacy in a more favorable light, Beijing deployed its chief technocrat, premier Li Qiang, to attend the ASEAN Summit. Just days earlier, China launched the first ASEAN-China Week 2023 in the eastern Chinese city of Fuzhou.
Despite China’s wishes, however, geopolitics are set to dominate the summitries. Also in attendance at the foreign ministers’ meeting was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was eager to dissuade ASEAN states from complying with Western sanctions, as well as US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is pushing to rally regional support against the US’ two superpower rivals.
According to the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Harris is expected to “focus on the climate crisis, on maritime security… and on efforts to uphold and strengthen international rules and norms in the region.”
Yet Indonesia likely felt slighted by US President Joe Biden’s decision to only visit neighboring Vietnam this month, even though the ASEAN rotational chair has its own share of concerns with both China and Russia.
Last month, Indonesia snubbed the expanded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) seemingly to steer clear of an increasingly Beijing-dominated organization as well as focus on its own goal of joining the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations.
Indeed, Indonesia has plenty on its own plate. For the second year in a row, Myanmar’s junta was excluded from the regional summits. But some member states are agitating for a more decisive response to the brutal junta’s decision not to implement an ASEAN-brokered “peace plan.”
For its part, Malaysia called on ASEAN to impose “strong” measures to compel the junta to comply with the plan, which includes provisions for the restoration of democratic institutions in Myanmar.
“Malaysia and other member countries gave their views that we cannot allow this to continue without strong and effective measures imposed on the junta,” said Malaysian Foreign Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir during the summit.
Marty Natalegawa, Indonesia’s former foreign minister and a prominent intellectual figure within ASEAN, lamented how the regional body seems “at a loss” over how to respond to the Myanmar crisis.
“I get the sense that ASEAN is at a loss for ideas … one can speak with eloquence about one individual member state’s wish to happen in Myanmar. But first and foremost, we need to have a common ASEAN position,” he told CNBC news.
There are proposals to fully expel the Myanmar junta in favor of deeper engagement with the exiled democratic government, known as the National Unity Government, at the United Nations and other fora. There is also a call to defer Myanmar’s upcoming chairmanship of ASEAN, scheduled for 2026.
The long-running South China Sea disputes are also proving intractable. Thanks to a concerted push led by member states such as the Philippines, ASEAN leaders are expected to express concern about “land reclamations, activities, serious incidents” in the disputed waters in the final communique.
Indonesia also hopes to finalize negotiations over a COC or, at the very least, secure a “hard deadline” to end the decades-old process.
“The CoC is expected to be a code of conduct that reflects international norms, principles and rules in line with the international law, especially UNCLOS, with the aim of achieving a stable, safe and peaceful South China Sea,” Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement earlier.
Guidelines for a finalized COC were adopted during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in July.
The two sides, according to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s ASEAN security chief, Rolliansyah Soemirat, agreed to complete the CoC negotiations by the middle of this decade. The COC guidelines are expected to be endorsed during the ASEAN-China Summit this week in Jakarta.
But other member states are growing increasingly impatient. “There’s a lot [of impediments] including the different national interests. At this point, I cannot exactly say what are those but since there are several countries and ASEAN is also involved, we have to come up with a compromise every step of the way,” an Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) official said ahead of the summit.
For its part, China maintains that the situation is generally “stable” and that COC negotiations are moving in the right direction.
During a weekend event in Jakarta, the Global Town Hall 2023, Foreign Minister Wang blamed external powers, a thinly-veiled attack on the US and its regional allies, and claimed: “[a]ttempts by certain forces outside the region to undermine peace in the South China Sea will not succeed, and the evil claws behind the scenes must be uncovered.”
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @Richeydarian