Southeast Asia is playing an ever-growing part in China’s investment and diplomatic decisions, particularly as Beijing’s rivalry with Washington heats up. In the second of a four-part series on China’s ties with Asean, Dewey Sim looks at the challenges facing the bloc and what it must do to remain relevant.
A long and heated rivalry between the United States and China could spell trouble for Asean – a scenario that would expose cracks within – and pose “tremendous risk” to – the regional bloc as member states grow increasingly divided over their approaches to the superpowers, according to diplomatic observers.
The stakes are high. If the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations fails to navigate the intensifying US-China competition, it could become irrelevant on the world stage, they say.
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Staying on the fence while tensions simmer between Washington and Beijing is familiar territory for nations in the bloc, with top officials from the region often stressing their countries will not take sides.
But that routine may soon become less tenable, according to Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, who predicted it will become increasingly difficult for the Asean bloc to collectively maintain its “passive neutrality” towards the US-China rivalry.
“Ideally, Asean should assert a form of autonomy and agency commensurate with its growing size and projected growth and importance,” he said.
“But there has been this belief that, due to [its] increasing division on how to approach the issue, there may not be a sufficient Asean idea or Asean way this time that can respond quickly enough and relevant enough to different forms of the US-China rivalry.”
He said the US-China rivalry – especially with countries seemingly leaning closer towards either the US or China – now pose a “tremendous risk to the ideal of Asean”, of being the premier regional platform that could offer solutions to pertinent regional issues.
In the past year, some of those countries have indicated which way they are inclined to lean. The Philippines, which under President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has been faced with an increasingly assertive China in the South China Sea, has appeared to favour the US.
“If Asean cannot adapt and cannot have its own voice on issues that are meant for the benefit of Asean’s agency in the region, then with the divisions that are being set between the US and China across different sectors, the difficulty in consensus building within Asean may expand,” Muhammad Waffaa said.
“Asean will be relevant if it consistently comes up with solutions, but will continue in stagnation if it fades to irrelevance.”
So far, Asean has sought to deepen ties with both powers while cultivating relations with other countries such as Japan and Australia.
Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Centre’s Asia programme, said the grouping had also “deepened the focus on strategic economic sectors” while attempting to manage divisions on more contentious issues like the South China Sea and Myanmar.
The US-China rivalry “complicates Asean’s perennial quest to foster unity amid diversity”, he said, referring to one defining characteristic of the diverse bloc, made up of more than 650 million people of various cultures, religions and ethnicities.
Asean’s response to the US-China competition had been based on “institutional memory [and] regional wisdom”, Muhammad Waffaa said, pointing to past attempts by the bloc to assert its agency.
One example was the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality – a declaration signed by Asean’s five founding members at the height of the Cold War in 1971. The document sought to achieve regional security without the involvement of “outside powers” in the region’s domestic and regional affairs, among other things.
At the time, then Malaysian prime minister Abdul Razak argued that the involvement of major powers was the reason why Southeast Asia had not enjoyed peace. A policy was needed to “ensure that this region will no longer be a theatre of conflict for the competing interests of the major powers”, he said.
The bloc has also been taking part in multilateral platforms such as the East Asia Forum – where member states hold dialogues with other powers, such as China, India and the US – and the Asean Regional Forum, a security dialogue.
“[Asean has] been giving hints at times of [its] capacity for diplomatic flexibility in response to problems, pursuing ad hoc initiatives like shuttle diplomacy or troika mechanisms, especially for Southeast Asian political situations,” Muhammad Waffaa said.
“But right now ... the issues are multifold.”
He said Asean was experiencing a “fading spirit of multilateralism”, and as member states grew, their preferences varied and became more pronounced in their support or objections.
“Negotiations get more difficult and therefore the statements that come through at the end of the day are often the easiest ones, the less political ones, or mere reiterations in different ways,” Muhammad Waffaa said. He cited the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific published in 2019, and a statement on regional maritime stability issued by Asean foreign ministers last year, the latter being a result of a push under the Indonesian chairmanship.
In that statement, Asean leaders reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining peace and stability, and said they were “closely [following] with concern” developments in the South China Sea.
Even then, the readout – issued amid heightened tensions between China and the Philippines – was “simply reaffirmations of principles without particular [remedies] or proposals”, Muhammad Waffaa said.
“At other times, Asean fails to issue any mention of incidents happening in the South China Sea and China’s behaviour at sea,” he added.
Several Asean member states, such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, have overlapping claims with China in the disputed waterway, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.
In an earlier sign of Asean divisions over the South China Sea, Cambodia in 2016 blocked any mention of an international court ruling that denied Beijing’s sweeping claims in the seaway. The Philippines and Vietnam had wanted the bloc to refer to the ruling in its communique.
Asean also has “minimal leverage” with the US when it comes to setting standards on newer issues – such as environmental issues and artificial intelligence – or convincing Washington about the type of dialogues it should pursue to dial down tensions with Beijing, according to Muhammad Waffaa.
“The divergence in norms and practices between Asean member states has become more and more pronounced,” he said.
“In the past, the panacea was the combination of a global great power unchallenged in its influence to provide a security umbrella for Southeast Asia ... and a regional power willing to [invest] in Asean.
“I am not sure if we are going to see these two things again at the same time in the near future.”
Sharon Seah, a senior fellow from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said Asean’s response had been unified in not wanting to choose a side as a collective “but in foreign policy, actions speak louder than words”.
In 2020, her institute’s “The State of Southeast Asia” survey found that 50.2 per cent of the region’s respondents chose to align with the US when asked a rhetorical question about choosing sides. When the question was asked again this year, 50.5 per cent chose China over the US.
“The region’s response will continue to fluctuate in the next few years as US-China strategic competition deepens, but a lot will also depend on how major powers carry themselves in global affairs,” Seah said.
“While Asean’s refusal to choose may be the collective stance, it does not mean countries cannot act within their sovereign rights to choose what is best for national interest.”
The Wilson Centre’s Parameswaran, who is also founder of a newsletter on regional developments called Asean Wonk, said a diversity of views within Asean was expected, but member states could exercise their agency and mitigate the risks of regional fragmentation if they had the political will, actively engaged externally, and narrowed their differences internally.
Still, even as both Washington and Beijing have said they would not force countries to pick sides, analysts suggested that could change.
Despite rhetoric about not picking sides, “Southeast Asian officials know that US-China rivalry means both powers will give less space for countries to make their own choices”, Parameswaran noted.
“As the US-China rivalry plays out, we will likely see both powers continuing to scrutinise choices of Southeast Asian states in strategic sectors like semiconductors and critical minerals.”
Similarly, in a paper published in June by former Asean secretary general Ong Keng Yong and Hoo Tiang Boon, an associate professor at the school of social sciences at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the pair argued that it could become “more difficult for Southeast Asian countries to find a ‘sweet spot’ between” the US and China as the rivalry intensified.
They warned that a full-blown US-China conflict would have dire consequences for the region. “If this conflict leads to pressure that compels Asean countries to choose sides, the region will bear inevitable costs, such as undermining of its unity,” they said.
“These potential repercussions mean that even as most Asean states have their own preferences – and grievances – towards China and the US based on issue areas and their respective interests, they do not want to choose, or be placed in situations where they could be compelled to choose, between the two powers.”
How then can Asean respond to the deepening superpower rivalry? Ong and Hoo argued that Asean – even though it has not always been unified on issues – had done “relatively well” to navigate the complicated strategic landscape, but “it should not rest on its laurels and can do more”.
They said Asean needed to be more proactive in shaping strategic currents and “must be in the driver’s seat more” including consolidating the economic integration of Asean member states.
Seah suggested that Asean “has no choice” but to maintain neutrality, adding that “choosing one side or the other is not an option”.
But she also suggested that Asean could choose a third side, citing surveys suggesting that the region has consistently preferred to work with strategic partners including the European Union, Japan and India to “hedge against the uncertainties of strategic rivalry”.
“Besides these conventional partners, I think Asean has to start expanding other region-to-region links such as with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Pacific Islands Forum, African Union as an additional layer of buffer,” she said.
“The real tangible risk to Asean is really the kind of nightmare bifurcation in the trade and economic realms, especially in the global supply chains that the region is part of.”
Asean would only be able to manage its present course as long as there was no significant deterioration of US-China ties, and no escalation of incidents in regions such as the South China Sea, according to Muhammad Waffaa.
And that would only work if China showed a “continued willingness to engage with regional norms and rules” and there was “no controversial overreach from the US”, he added.
“However, the situation would become increasingly difficult in the event of a crisis or open conflict, as every action would be interpreted as either supporting or opposing one side,” he said.
“Asean could be forced to different blocs of not just politics but also supply chains, socio-economic standards and practices.”
The key question for Asean, according to Parameswaran, would be whether member states can use their agency to sustain the bloc’s response to the US-China competition – amid a range of other internal and external challenges, including domestic regime pressures and growing global protectionism.
“Asean is no stranger to great power rivalry having been born amid the Cold War, but its multifaceted response to managing US-China competition will naturally be difficult to calibrate because it requires a diverse group of countries to simultaneously broaden relationships, boost growth and minimise divisions,” he said.
More from South China Morning Post:
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- China, Philippines continue to clash in South China Sea despite provisional deal
- How we got to this stage in the South China Sea: understanding the source of tension
- South China Sea: Philippines urged to explore gas reserves, or risk losing them to Beijing
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