The un-ASEAN way of treating unresolved issues

That cozy ASEAN way was shattered in Phnom Penh. The Philippines and Vietnam insisted that their recent clashes with China should be mentioned and included in the final communique. -Jakarta Post/ANN 

Mon, Jul 16, 2012
Sabam Siagian
The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network

For the first time in its 45-year history, the annual meeting of the ASEAN foreign ministers in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh has failed to adopt an agreed upon final communiqué.

In the past years, this pre-cooked document has served as a summing up of the achieved agreements during the past working year, and an outline of matters that still need to be tackled.

Unresolved issues were not mentioned or included in the final communiqué. Most probably, there was this unflagging optimism as part of the region's social culture that unresolved problems in due time would find their natural solutions. In sum, that is the traditional ASEAN way.

That cozy ASEAN way was shattered in Phnom Penh. The Philippines and Vietnam insisted that their recent clashes with China should be mentioned and included in the final communiqué.

Last April, Chinese and Philippine government ships were in a confrontational mode over the Scarborough Shoal. Chinese maps refer to this string of sandbanks as Huayang.

The strategic issue is the legal ownership of potential reserves of oil and gas - so far unproven - that may be discovered in the exclusive economic zone of Scarborough Shoal (or Huayang), which depends on the national flag that is planted on the string of sandbanks. Philippino Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario was indeed blunt - and very un-ASEAN - when he directly accused the Chair, Cambodia's foreign minister Hor Namhong, of "consistently defending China's interest".

The Chair has refused to comply with the wishes of the Philippines and Vietnam although the South China Sea issue had been mentioned in the Chairman's (Indonesia) statement after the ASEAN Summit in Bali last November.

Vietnam's clash with China erupted after Chinese vessels interfered with Vietnamese drilling operations in what Hanoi claimed as its exclusive economic zone. The Vietnam case is a very unique example of modern history's vagaries. Vietnam succeeded in overcoming the devastating onslaught unleashed by the US and achieved a strategic victory. Now a united Vietnam is embracing her former staunch enemy. War vessels of the US Seventh Fleet have been festively welcomed as they reentered Cam Ranh Bay. The reason is obvious - Hanoi is hedging its bets against Vietnam's traditional adversary, China. However, simultaneously, Hanoi is maintaining a party-to-party back channel with Beijing, which is a brilliant application of Indonesia's concept of "dynamic equilibrium".

There are, at least, two approaches in viewing the un-ASEAN events in Phnom Penh. The benign approach would explain the failure to produce the traditional final communiqué at the end of the annual foreign ministers' meeting as a sign of ASEAN's maturity. Now, serious differences are not papered over.

The second approach views the events in Phnom Penh more realistically and as events that we should heed seriously. Phnom Penh, this view submits, is a preliminary skirmish that juxtaposes China and the US. We could see a noticeable upward trend of US rebalancing moves toward the Asia-Pacific region: starting with Secretary Hillary Clinton's statement at the Asian Regional Forum in Hanoi, July 2010, that heralded the US' commitment to uphold the principle of the freedom of the seas in the East Asia-Pacific region.

US President Barack Obama sounded the clarion call in Canberra when delivering a major speech before the parliament: "The United States is a Pacific nation ... and will remain a Pacific nation." Never mind that the speech was also meant as a celebration of the 60-year US-Australia Defense Pact, a product of the Cold War era.

Probably, to convince Asian countries that perhaps tend to be skeptical about Washington's seriousness, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as the first speaker at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore early last month clearly outlined the US force restructuring as part of the defense rebalancing: 60 percent of the US naval forces will be assigned in the Asia-Pacific theater and 40 percent in the Atlantic-European theater.

Could it be that the Philippines, ever so receptive and appreciative of the US' rhetoric and movements, has become emboldened and decided to discard ASEAN's non-confrontational approach?

Is China now calling the US bluff, of course not openly or confrontationally, but true to Mao Zedong's doctrine of a people's war, just nibbling at the edges, using ASEAN as a safe chess board since Cambodia, as Chair, is a convenient chess piece?

If this diplomatic guerrilla war between Washington and Beijing continues unchecked it could be the beginning of the end for ASEAN. That is why we wholeheartedly support Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa's line of thinking as conveyed to the media. He worked hard up to the last minute to save what still could be saved. He said: "Once the dust settles, we have to ask ourselves, what next? We need to be clear on what is ASEAN's interest in this issue. We [ASEAN] need to assert our centrality."

In order to safeguard ASEAN's centrality, we like to suggest that Marty persuade President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to embark on crisis diplomacy. He could convince the President that a direct meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen in Phnom Penh and President Benigno Aquino III in Manila would contain the crisis to its initial stage before spreading like cancer.

In his dinner speech on the eve of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Yudhoyono presented "An Architecture for Durable Peace in the Asia Pacific". He said, among other things, "As we strive to build a durable architecture for peace, we now have before us a strategic opportunity to usher in the geopolitics of cooperation". It is quite obvious that this opportunity should be immediately grasped before ASEAN falls into disarray.

The writer is co-chairman of the Indonesian Forum of (Retired) Ambassadors. He served as ambassador to Australia.

Key players holding Asean hostage

There are multiple choices, please pick one or more: a) The Asean claimants; b) The Asean non-claimants; c) The concurrent Asean Chair; d) The US; e) China; and f) all of the above. Here are explanations for each answer.

For the answer a), there are many reasons. Asean claimants are divided and lacked unity - the grouping's weakest point. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei seldom hold meetings among themselves to discuss about their common strategies. Back in 1995 they used to back and watch out for each others. As the national stakes are getting higher, they are shrieking in their cooperation. However, when they deem fit, they would use Asean as a front to counter external pressure. This time around in Phnom Penh they went on their own different way protecting their turfs.

For the first time in the Asean's 45-year history, the joint communiqué was not release because there were too many details on the disputes in South China Sea. Deep down, the foreign ministers from claimant members all pushed for their own bottom lines. They were more resilient previously. The Philippines wanted their dispute in the Scarborough Shoal to be included in the final communiqué while Vietnam did not budge pushing for its own version of the recent China's alleged violations of its economic exclusive zone. Malaysia, one of the most critical voices of Asean claimants in the past regarding the South China Sea, has been missing in action this time. However, it insisted to add "another shoals" followed the Philippines' request. Brunei was quiet and waiting for its turn next year as the Asean chair.

Such divergent views provided an ideal opportunity for the Asean chair, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, to go for a kill and cut short the whole debate. He proposed to the claimants that all of the incidents raised by them should be referred collectively as "recent developments in the South China Sea." Take it or leave it. Bang, bang, nothing came out. It was very interesting why he was not in the mood to find a common ground - the virtue normally displayed by all previous Asean chairs. At the last minute, Philippine Foreign Minister Roberto de Rosario even softened his wordings with an offer of just mentioning "the affected shoal." Now the Asean leaders must be seriously pondering what would happen when the region's longest reigning leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen, chairs the November summit.

It was clear for those who opted for the answer b) that the non-claimant countries are equally problematic apart from the Asean chair. There are two kinds of non-claimants Asean countries - those who are concerned parties and those who are not. The concerned parties are Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, and the rest are not. The trio wants to see progress but now they are now caught in a dilemma as their views and positions could impact on the future of Asean and the whole gamut of Asean-China relations. Singapore stressed from time to time that as concerned parties in the disputes both within the Asean and international context it must be engaged to ensure freedom and safety of the sea-lane of communications. So is Indonesia, which also wants Asean to show solidarity overe the dispute. Thailand's position is a bit tricky. It depends who is the "real" foreign minister - still very confusing. These core members backed the issuance of a separate statement on South China Sea at the ministerial meeting. But the idea was later squashed as the Asean chair said that both China and the Philippine held bilateral talks and the tension over the Scarborough Shoal or Huanyan calmed down. So, there was no need for such a statement. Thailand, which is a coordinating country for Asean-China relations for 2012-2015, was lobbied hard by both China and the US for support on their positions. There was even a suggestion that if there was such a statement on South China Sea, both China and the Philippines should be mentioned and deplored for heightening the tension in the South China Sea.

Explanation for the choice c) must be that the Asean chair this year at the Asean annual meeting is a veteran politician, Foreign minister Hor Namhong. He knows exactly when to pull the trigger. This time he managed to block the joint communiqué - it will be his legacy. His action upset several foreign ministers attending the meeting. The reporters widely quoted Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa's comment saying that he was "disappointed" with the outcome and some Asean members acted "irresponsibly." Of course, he did not mention Cambodia by name. It remains to be seen how this will affect the role of Indonesia as observers in the Thai-Cambodian dispute over the Preah Vihear/Khao Praviharn Temple. There has been very little progress on this initiative when Indonesia served as chair last year.

In the next two years, Brunei Darussalam and Myanmar will take up the Asean chair after Cambodia in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Truth be told, both countries supported Cambodia on the South China Sea issue. Although Brunei is one of the Asean claimants, the oil-rich country has never raised any voice or stated its position out right in this squabbling. But Brunei and Myanmar have distinctive positions that the overlapping claims should be settled among the claimants without useful forces and through dialogues. Such views augur well with China's long standing argument.

For the answer d), reasons are simple. Everybody knows the US has shown more support for Asean even though it is cutting its defense budget in the future. With troops dwindling down in Afghanistan, the US is shifting the attention to the Asia-Pacific, which could be the next battleground. The Pentagon plans to increase the troop level from the current 50 per cent to 60 per cent in the next 10 years. Where will be the extra ten per cent of American troops making their first home base or rather rotational base? With the US becoming more enthusiastic in association with the ongoing Asean efforts on security matters, some Asean members are feeling gung-ho while others are feeling uneasy as they know they could become prawns in the big power games. After all, Southeast Asia will remain in China's backyard.

Those picked e) for an answer must be non-Chinese. Throughout the Asean ministerial meeting, the Chinese media in China all blamed the Philippines for holding Asean hostage and wondered aloud why Asean allowed such a behavior. Interestingly, only few Chinese commentators mentioned Vietnam though. The South China Sea row comes at the time when China is promoting new diplomatic approach of peaceful rise and development. It will be further consolidated as a plan for regional harmony with the new leadership line up later this year. Therefore Beijing does not understand why Asean would allow the Philippines and Vietnam to turn things upside down in Asean-China relations. Beijing has already placed relations with developing countries in Southeast Asia as the number one foreign policy priority followed the South China Sea tension. China's ties with major powers especially the US, Russia and Europe are predictable and stable. However, now any tension between China and Asean could harm their major powers' relations.

Finally, the explanation for the last answer f) is rather self-fullfilling. All of the above mentioned players have effectively held Asean hostage one way or another as well. Many decisions were now stuck because there was no joint communiqué to officially state their deliberations. All player have used Asean as a play toy for their own benefits all the way, utilizing the rhetoric and tactics that Asean leaders are familiar too. The Asean chair knows full well his pejorative power to shape the agenda and content. He exercised it with prudence. Likewise, Asean claimants and non-claimants understand deep in their heart they would never be able to unite again with on common position on South China Sea as in March 1995. That was why the Philippines has taken all necessary steps to boost its own position, including increased defence cooperation with the US, much to the chagrins of other Asean members. The US and China will compete, confront and cooperation within the Asean frameworks. In the past, nobody was worried about such engagements because Asean spoke with one voice. From now on, all hell can break loose. Good luck Asean.