Priorities for Asean to guard against the rising tensions

At the Asean Summit at Kuala Lumpur next week, only leaders from the 10 medium and smaller-member states will be there. Yet concerns about major regional powers will be high on the agenda. 

Tensions between China and Japan have been palpable and may again be stoked with upcoming anniversaries of the end of World War II. 

For the US, despite repeated assurances of its pivot to Asia, fast developing problems in the Middle East dominate the president’s attention. The Obama administration’s effort on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as a centrepiece for its economic engagement with the region, faces a closing window if there is to be a successful conclusion. 

Asean cannot dictate to these major powers. But a more cohesive and optimised Asean can still be a central player to help maintain regional stability. There are, moreover, things to be done to consolidate the group’s integration effort to become a Community and to restructure its work processes for greater effectiveness and efficiency. 

Otherwise the rising competition and tensions threaten to split the group and, once divided, face having its views pushed to the peripheral, even on issues within its home. 

 

Asean’s central role in Asia 

Historically Asean has helped improve dialogue and understanding with such efforts as the East Asia Summit, which brings together all the key powers, and also the broader Asean Regional Forum. 

Major powers accepted this because of Asean’s neutrality and non-threatening demeanour and there was no acceptance of any major power to take up this role. 

But many now feel the risk of flare-ups has increased, such as the incidents last year between China and Vietnam, after Beijing installed an oil rig in disputed waters. Such situations would require quick responses in order to be effective. In such situations, Asean being more diverse and less powerful, would likely struggle. It is for this reason that the acceptance among the major powers of Asean’s role is under pressure. 

Here are three priorities that Asean leaders should consider if they are to retain confidence in playing a central role for the wider region.

First, Asean must develop the current regional forums and summits to ensure it remains a diverse and overlapping network of groupings and meetings that involve different powers.

At the inaugural Singapore Forum held earlier this month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong took the view that Asean can serve as a good platform for countries to cooperate with China and the US, such that even small countries can have their interests represented in the global fora. An inclusive Asean-led regional architecture focus on building a community based on norms for cooperation, rather than an order predicated on power calculations. 

Even as tensions between the major powers increases, Asean as a group must avoid being permanently aligned with one side or another. Instead, it has to retain a position that allows it to agree with one side or the other according to the situation. Take the South China Sea dispute, where the US and the Philippines have been among those denouncing Chinese efforts. 

Earlier Asean efforts resulted in the Declaration of Conduct that asks parties to exercise self-restraint and employ peaceful means to settle disputes, and now should move forward with negotiations on binding a Code of Conduct that can ensure safety and freedom of navigation and a standstill moratorium on further actions to bolster claims through reclamation and other works. But Asean as a group must stop short of endorsing or encouraging any party in its claims to sovereignty. 

A second need is for Asean to push ahead with its Community project in order to increase group cohesion. On economic issues, efforts to promote Asean as a common market with a single production base have enabled the group increasingly to speak with one voice. Asean leaders at the Summit must reinforce this and, in the process, push back against protectionist interests that seek to slow down integration.

Building on this, Asean should take on the political-security and socio-cultural pillars to deliver a broader sense of community. Notably, Malaysia as the current Asean chair has promised initiatives to make Asean a more people-centreed institution. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak promised to “steer Asean close to the people of Southeast Asia, to make this institution part of people’s daily lives”. The summit can provide a good first assessment not just of that broad and bold ambition but of the details of how this can be delivered.

This ties to the third need for greater political will and an effort to renew and galvanise the institution from within. A more efficient and effective Asean Secretariat must be a key mechanism in efforts to bring the 10 countries together. The governments of Asean have long shied away from granting more autonomy, budget and bureaucrats.

No one needs to imitate the example of Brussels. But the current Asean Secretariat is strapped with a budget of approximately US$12 million per year, some 300 staff and struggles to administer up to 1,000 Asean meetings held each year. This is insufficient even for the Secretariat’s current role, let alone future ambitions for a deeper Asean community. 

Policy coherence and coordination across the different sectors and “pillars” is needed. For example, Asean can commission teams to identify key areas such as transboundary haze and climate change that cut across existing pillars. Such teams would be tasked to deepen the understanding and policy development of cross-sectoral issues to deal with identified problems. This will help officials expand beyond their country or issue-defined specialisations, and gain a more holistic Asean perspective that will help in a more effective implementation of policies. 

Asean may be made up of small and medium-sized countries, where even collectively, its economies are dwarfed by that of the major and middle powers in the region. But what it lacks in power and size, the group can make up for by utilising its 

centrality, underlying legitimacy and trust to develop greater 

normative power. Asia is opening a new chapter in history, and Asean must find and assert its place and right to shape the region’s future. Otherwise, it risks getting sidelined in the regional architecture.

 

Simon Tay and Shangari Kiruppalini are, respectively, chairman and policy research analyst at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA). The SIIA published two policy briefs that make recommendations on how Asean should strengthen its central role amidst rising regional tensions. The policy briefs titled “Asean centrality in the regional architecture” and “Strengthening Asean institutions for AEC 2015 and beyond” are available at http://www.siiaonline.org/page/publication/