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Economic and Security Interests in Southeast Asia
Economic and Security Interests in Southeast Asia May 21, 2014
By Felix K. Chang Felix K. Chang is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in the Asia Program as well as the Program on National Security. He was previously a consultant in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization practice; among his clients were the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Department of the Treasury. Earlier, he served as a senior planner and an intelligence officer in the U.S. Department of Defense and a business advisor at Mobil Oil Corporation. This article is a revised version of a paper he delivered at a conference on "The Great Divergence? Economic Integration and Political Conflict in Asia,” cosponsored by FPRI and the Reserve Officers Association, held in Washington, D.C. in October 2013.
Abstract: Despite worries that ASEAN is becoming weak, the organization remains as strong as it ever was, given the parameters of its design. Its member countries still tightly embrace the organization’s principles, the “ASEAN way.” But simple adherence to those principles can be problematic. ASEAN countries, whose national economic and political interests collide, often appeal to the same principles to back their positions. That tends to pull ASEAN in different directions. Great power policies, particularly those of China and the United States, now exacerbate the situation. At the same time, ASEAN’s reliance on multilateral consensus has made it difficult to reconcile real differences among its member countries or develop unified regional responses. That can be seen in issues from the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River to the South China Sea. The ease with which ASEAN’s principles can come into conflict and its consensus-driven decisionmaking can become deadlocked clearly marks the limits of the “ASEAN way.”
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hen the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand met in Bangkok on August 8, 1967, they had good reason to be concerned about their region. During the 1950s and 1960s, many international and civil conflicts had swept through Southeast Asia, impacting all of these countries to one degree or another. On that day, their foreign ministers gathered to sign a document that would become known as the Bangkok Declaration, founding the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
© 2014 Published for the Foreign Policy Research Institute by Elsevier Ltd.
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In 1967, the region’s security situation was tenuous. Indonesia’s four-year armed confrontation (konfrontasi) against Malaysia and Singapore had just wound down. During that struggle, Indonesia—opposed to the formation of Malaysia from the union of peninsular Malaya, Singapore, and the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak—sent its army to infiltrate and destabilize the new country. Ultimately, a succession of coups within Indonesia toppled its government and brought an end to its konfrontasi policy. But that did not mean that Malaysia and Singapore could rest easy. The Philippines still claimed Sabah, and both felt abandoned by the United Kingdom, which had withdrawn its military forces east of Suez, undermining its security guarantees to them under the Anglo-Malaysian Defense Agreement.1 Adding to their unease were their lingering suspicions about each other. Tensions between Malaysia and Singapore over the former’s preferential policies favoring the ethnic Malays (bumiputera) had earlier fuelled violent ethnic clashes and eventually contributed to Singapore’s ouster from Malaysia in 1965.2 Even more troubling for these five Southeast Asian countries were the various communist insurgencies that had sprouted across the region. Both Malaysia and the Philippines had fought (and, in the latter case, would fight again) communist guerrillas within their borders. Meanwhile, Thailand faced a growing external threat on its eastern border, where Soviet and North Vietnamese-backed guerrillas threatened the governments of neighboring Cambodia and Laos. And slightly further to the east, the long-running conflict between North and South Vietnam had entered into an even more intense phase with the large-scale introduction of American ground forces. ASEAN Principles It was against this dismal backdrop, that ASEAN was founded. Through this new organization, the leaders of ASEAN’s countries hoped to create greater regional stability that would permit them to consolidate their power and begin building their nations. For beyond their security concerns, they faced the daunting tasks of setting up new national governments, pushing through economic reforms, and helping their societies cope with rapid changes in age-old political and social orders. Accordingly, they came to believe that their best chance to achieve that hoped-for stability was to set aside their differences and accentuate what they had in common: an interest in economic development. But Southeast Asian countries realized that even if they could set aside all their differences, they would still be unable to fully resolve the region’s conflicts, The Five Powers Defense Arrangements (FPDA) essentially replaced the Anglo-Malaysian Defense Agreement in 1971. The FPDA brought together Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom to offer its two Southeast Asian members some protection, while they built up their armed forces. Not a mutual defense alliance, the FPDA pledged its members to “consult” with one another in the event of an attack on peninsular Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak were excluded) or Singapore. 2 Thomas Sowell, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 55-77. 1
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because of the big role that external powers played in them. Conscious of that fact, the leaders of most Southeast Asian countries have always maintained a certain wariness towards external powers—whether colonial empires or Cold War superpowers. That sense was further reinforced by their own domestic political authority, which for almost all of them, primarily derived from their nationalist credentials.3 One can see these sentiments woven into the Bangkok Declaration. In it, ASEAN’s original signatories took as their objectives: 1. To accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region through joint endeavors in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of South-East Asian Nations; 2. To promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter; 3. To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields; 4. To provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities in the educational, professional, technical and administrative spheres; 5. To collaborate more effectively for the greater utilization of their agriculture and industries, the expansion of their trade, including the study of the problems of international commodity trade, the improvement of their transportation and communications facilities and the raising of the living standards of their peoples; 6. To promote South-East Asian studies; 7. To maintain close and beneficial cooperation with existing international and regional organizations with similar aims and purposes, and explore all avenues for even closer cooperation among themselves.4 The objectives repeated the themes of regional collaboration and cooperation. Underlying both were ASEAN’s abiding interests in economic development and the means to achieve it. Indeed, economic development has remained the prime motivator behind ASEAN to the present day. But almost as notable was what the Bangkok declaration excluded. It avoided any specific mention of political or security goals, which may have seemed too ambitious at the time. Yet implicit in the declaration was a desire for greater regional stability. 3 Southeast Asian leaders at the time were largely drawn from the secular, nationalist elites of their countries, rather than being true representatives of their societies. Lucian W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 92. 4 Association of Southeast Asian Nations, “The ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) of August 8, 1967.”
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One thing that Southeast Asian countries could have done to achieve that regional stability would have been to structure a balance of power. But given vast differences in population and resources across the region’s countries, doing so would have required the long-term involvement of external powers—something Southeast Asian leaders were reluctant to accept. Thus, ASEAN’s founding countries chose instead to seek greater regional stability through collaboration and cooperation.5 For such a scheme to work, the ASEAN states would have to restrain themselves from using either political coercion or military force. The way they ultimately chose to do this was to adopt a very strict form of national sovereignty. That approach was given full expression in the guiding principles of ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia in 1976: 1. Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, and national identity of all nations; 2. The right of every state to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion; 3. Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another; 4. Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful manner; 5. Renunciation of the threat or use of force, and 6. Effective cooperation among themselves.6 The framers of the treaty clearly emphasized the sanctity of states’ sovereignty. The treaty’s first three guiding principles directly referred to some expression of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Going further, its next two (and to some extent three) principles addressed how international differences or disputes should be resolved. In short, an ASEAN country should not interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbors and should refrain from using political coercion or military force in settling its external affairs. The combination of the treaty’s emphasis on national sovereignty and the objectives of the Bangkok Declaration have come to define ASEAN’s approach to improving regional stability. It subordinated its members’ external security concerns about one another to their shared interests in economic development and internal security. In practice, during the 1970s that meant that even though ASEAN countries found common cause with the United States in battling their internal communist insurgencies, they remained hesitant to directly support American efforts against North Vietnam. 5 ASEAN’s success in creating an organization founded on cooperation can be attributed to several unusual circumstances, the primary one being that the leaders of all five founding countries were not only practical men with similar backgrounds and outlooks, but also able to exercise sufficient control over their countries through military or single-party rule to ensure compliance. George W. Downs, David M. Rocke, and Randolph M. Siverson, “Arms Races and Cooperation,” in Kenneth A. Oye, ed., Cooperation under Anarchy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 118-146. 6 “Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia of February 24, 1976,” Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
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In the decades since the declaration and treaty were signed, these key ASEAN preferences collectively have become known as the “ASEAN way.” Even as ASEAN’s membership grew to encompass all of the countries in Southeast Asia through the 1980s and 1990s, the organization has rarely deviated from its “way,” particularly its dictum of non-interference. That was because the leaders of ASEAN’s new member countries—with backgrounds and experiences with the international environment similar to those of ASEAN’s founders—largely came to order their economic and security priorities in a way that mirrored that of their predecessors. Helpfully, the decline in international tensions after the Cold War eased the external pressures on Southeast Asia, which could have fettered that ordering. Only recently has that trend reversed with China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.7 As appealing as the ideas embodied in ASEAN may have been to Southeast Asians, most observers in the 1970s considered the organization to be more like a talk shop than a practical instrument of international politics. Despite its rhetoric, it accomplished little at first. When ASEAN tried to secure economic concessions cooperatively from countries outside the region, it was wholly unsuccessful. As a result, its members continued to cultivate independently their own relationships with external powers. But North Vietnam’s victory over its southern rival in 1975 gave ASEAN a new impetus for cooperation. Since all of ASEAN’s member countries at the time had already experienced some form of communist unrest, they immediately recognized the threat that a unified communist Vietnam could pose. Hence, it was during this time when ASEAN crafted its more security-oriented Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia.8 Yet, in spite of the new danger, ASEAN countries kept the United States at arm’s length—just close enough to balance the communist threat. As early as 1973, Thailand—the ASEAN country most exposed to the advance of Vietnamese communism—began to urge the United States to withdraw its forces from Thai territory. As a result, the American presence in Thailand that once totaled over 300 combat aircraft was completely drawn down by 1976.9 Even the Philippines, nominally America’s strongest Southeast Asian ally, sought to distance itself from the United States. Indeed, a worried Washington at the time felt pressured to rush its negotiations with Manila over U.S. bases in the Philippines to ensure their Hiro Katsumata, “Reconstruction of Diplomatic Norms in Southeast Asia: The Case for Strict Adherence to the ‘ASEAN way,’” Contemporary Southeast Asia 25:1 (2003), pp.104-121; Gillian Goh, “The ‘ASEAN Way’: Non-Intervention and ASEAN’s Role in Conflict Management,” Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, Spring 2003, pp. 113-118. 8 Shee Poon-Kim, “A Decade of ASEAN, 1967-1977,” Asian Survey 17:8 (1977), pp. 753770. 9 The American withdrawal accelerated in the aftermath of the Mayaguez Incident in May 1975 when the United States used Thailand’s U-Tapao naval airfield to support its rescue mission despite Bangkok’s official refusal to permit it. The Thai government considered the act a violation of its national sovereignty and called for the last American forces to leave Thailand. 7
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continued operation. Clearly Southeast Asian reservations about external powers extended to even those that they considered friendly. That is still true today. Even as some ASEAN countries have reached out to external powers to balance the new challenge of China’s rise, they continue to closely guard their national sovereignty and reject notions of “alignment” with any one external camp.10 Although ASEAN was never able to remove the potential of external threats to its member countries, it did excel at creating a series of intergovernmental dialogues within its membership. ASEAN hoped that through such dialogue its member countries could reduce the level of international disagreements and find cooperative solutions to regional problems. The success of the organization’s various dialogues has generally depended on the willing participation of its member countries and their ability to arrive at a multilateral consensus. With a common focus on economic development, ASEAN dialogues have proven effective in dealing with several intra-regional issues, such as lowering trade barriers and creating an international response to piracy in the region’s shipping lanes. Several Southeast Asian leaders even attribute the peace that the region has enjoyed since the 1980s to ASEAN. While that may be giving the organization too much credit, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed certainly lost no opportunity to laud the “ASEAN way” as the model for international cooperation. Limits of the ‘ASEAN Way’ Some experts now fear that ASEAN is becoming divided, weak, and susceptible to mounting Chinese influence. But they miss the point. Given the parameters of its design, ASEAN remains as strong as it ever was. Its member countries still tightly embrace the “ASEAN way.” This is quite remarkable, considering the great diversity of interests among them. Though the “ASEAN way” is most closely associated with the principle of non-interference, the organization’s “way” can be said to include five distinct features: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Focus on economic development; Non-interference in the internal affairs of other states; Restrained use of coercion or force in security conflicts within ASEAN; Preference for non-alignment with external powers; Decision-making based on multilateral consensus.
Telegram 282411 from the Department of State to the Embassy in Thailand, Nov. 29, 1975 (Library of Congress, Henry Kissinger Papers, Geopolitical File, Container CL 238, Thailand, Jun. 1974-Feb. 1976); Memorandum From Secretary of State Kissinger to President Ford, Washington, June 13, 1975 (Ford Library, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific, Box 1, Southeast Asia); Memorandum from John A. Froebe and William L. Stearman of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, July 20, 1973 (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 565, Country Files, Far East, Thailand, Vol. 10, 1973-); Telegram 4623 from the Embassy in Thailand to the Department of State, Mar. 22, 1973 (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 565, Country Files, Far East, Thailand, Vol. 10, 1973-). 10
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During the 1980s and early 1990s, these features were well-suited to bring greater stability to the region. Adherence among ASEAN countries to the principles of non-interference and restrained use of coercion or force enabled them to focus their energies on creating fast-growing “tiger economies.” In fact, ASEAN countries at the time cooperated to form cross-border intelligence-sharing and security arrangements to help each other subdue their remaining internal insurgencies.11 Moreover, the end of the Cold War removed the external pressure on ASEAN countries to align with particular great powers, which largely had withdrawn from Southeast Asia by the early 1990s. And finally, ASEAN’s multilateral, consensus-driven decision-making process made the organization appealing to other non-member Southeast Asian countries, which may have been worried about encroachments on their sovereignty. That helped ASEAN rapidly expand its membership and, in doing so, its sphere of stability. However, ASEAN’s design has inherent limitations. ASEAN has struggled to deal with challenges that bring the organization’s guiding principles into conflict with one another. ASEAN’s tradition of dialogue, which has long been the organization’s default dispute-resolution mechanism, has proven ill-suited to address many of the new disagreements among its member countries. Dialogue may be effective at reducing the misperceptions that can cause disagreements, but it is often ineffective when those disagreements spring from real differences in interests. In the latter cases, ASEAN has been unable to persuade individual members to bend to the will of the rest of the organization. Hence, ASEAN has wrestled inconclusively with cases like: Indonesia’s forest fire haze which occasionally blankets Singapore, Malaysia, and the southern Philippines; informal Malaysian support for Islamic separatists in southern Thailand; and the dispute between Thailand and Myanmar over the former’s tolerance for ethnic rebels fighting Myanmar’s government and latter’s tolerance of drug trafficking across Thailand’s border. One particularly thorny issue has been the building of the Xayaburi hydroelectric dam on a section of the Mekong River between Thailand and Laos. Since it was proposed, the dam has divided the region.12 On the one hand, Thailand and Laos want to see the dam built. Bangkok is concerned that without the dam’s new power generation capacity rising electricity prices could derail Thailand’s industrial development. In addition, Thai companies and banks that are involved in the dam’s construction and financing have a direct stake in its completion. So, too, does Laos, which views the dam as a key component of its economic development strategy to turn the country into the “battery of Southeast Asia.” Plus, royalties and Amitav Acharya, “The Association of Southeast Asian Nations: ‘Security Community’ or ‘Defense Community’?” Pacific Affairs, Summer 1991, p. 166. 12 For a more nuanced account of the discord see, Felix K. Chang, “Hydroelectric Power and the Mekong River: Energy, Environment, and Politics in Southeast Asia,” in Globalization, Development and Security in Asia, ed., Zhiqun Zhu (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2014), pp. 87-108. 11
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taxes from the dam’s electricity production would enable Laos to fund its longsought infrastructure build out.13 On the other hand, the Xayaburi dam will block the free flow of the Mekong River and put the dam’s managers in control of its waters. That worries downstream Cambodia and Vietnam, which have seen other dams (including their own) contribute to periodic drought and flooding. Moreover, the river’s natural water flow is crucial to the migration of fish and, thus, contributes to the health of the region’s fisheries, which most rural Cambodians rely on for food and income. It is also vital for carrying nutrient-rich sediments to the Mekong River delta, where over half of Vietnam’s agricultural cultivation occurs. There, the water flow not only helps to improve the delta’s soil fertility, but also prevents saltwater from the South China Sea from fouling the land.14 Hence, the Xayaburi dam’s construction has brought the economic development plans of Thailand and Laos into conflict with the traditional livelihoods of communities in Cambodia and Vietnam. From an ASEAN perspective, Thailand and Laos reasonably could claim that their downstream neighbors were impinging on their sovereign right to pursue their economic development plans. But Cambodia and Vietnam could also argue that their upstream neighbors were interfering in their internal affairs. And all four countries could contend that they were focused on their economic welfare. The Mekong River Commission (MRC)—an ASEAN-like intergovernmental body—has tried to reconcile the river’s uses. It launched a detailed study to evaluate the dam’s environmental impacts. But after that study was completed in early 2011, it failed to reach a consensus decision over whether the dam’s construction should proceed. A year later, the MRC amended its prior nondecision. It requested that Laos delay the dam’s construction until more environmental impact studies could be conducted. But since the MRC’s requests are non-binding (a nod to ASEAN’s preference for non-interference and nonconfrontation), Laos ignored the MRC’s request and pushed ahead with the dam’s construction.15 “Thailand Pushes Xayaburi Dam,” Asia Sentinel, Feb. 29, 2012, http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4280&Itemi d=437; Teerapong Pomun, “Living River Siam: A Thai Perspective on Proposed Mainstream Mekong Dams,” Stimson Center, Sep. 21, 2011; Mekong River Commission, Proposed Xayaburi Dam Project – Mekong River: Prior Consultation Project Review Report (Vientiane: Mekong River Commission, Mar. 25, 2011), pp. 91-99; Ravic R. Huso, “Laos: Plans for Five Large Dams on the Mekong Mainstream Advance,” U.S. Department of State cable, Feb. 15, 2008, Wikileaks, http://www.wikileaks.org/cable/2008/02/08VIENTIANE111.html. 14 “Fish-friendly?” The Economist, Sept. 7, 2013; “Vietnam and Cambodia tell Laos to stop $3.5bn Mekong River dam project,” The Guardian, Jan. 18, 2013. 15 Rather than reopen the debate over the controversial Xayaburi dam, the MRC chose not to even discuss the issue at its January 2013 annual meeting. Ame Trandem, “Xayaburi Dam Left Off MRC Council Agenda,” International Rivers, Jan. 15, 2013, http://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/xayaburi-dam-left-off-mrc-council-agenda7795; Daniel Ten Kate, “Laos to Start Building Mekong Dam This Week Amid Opposition,” Bloomberg News, Nov. 5, 2012; Mekong River Commission, Proposed Xayaburi 13
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The debate among ASEAN countries over the Xayaburi dam demonstrates how their adherence to ASEAN’s principles can sometimes make it harder for them to reach real solutions. Both sides in the debate could appeal to different (and sometimes the same) principles to back their positions. The ease with which ASEAN’s principles can come into conflict and its organizational decision-making can become deadlocked clearly marks the limits of the “ASEAN way.” Moreover, those limits cast a shadow beyond the borders of ASEAN. They also make any unified regional response more difficult. The internal impasse within ASEAN over the Xayaburi dam ultimately undermined the region’s ability to address its common concern over China’s far larger dam building program further upstream on the Mekong River. Hence, it is hardly surprising that ASEAN has been unable to find a cooperative way to deal with China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Sea. Stricter adherence to ASEAN’s principles would do little to tackle such challenges. Impact of Great Power Policies on ASEAN Similar appeals to ASEAN’s principles are now coming from outside the organization, as great powers have returned to the region. While the ASEAN treaty expressed “the right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference,” it does not limit its member countries from pursuing external relationships. So even as some countries—like Indonesia and Malaysia—have continued to keep their distance from external powers, others recently have sought to attract them, as in the cases of Cambodia and the Philippines. Cambodia welcomed deeper ties with China in order to secure strings-free financing for its infrastructure development projects. Meanwhile, the Philippines strengthened its security relationship with the United States in response to China’s assertive actions in the South China Sea. But as China and the United States have become more involved in Southeast Asia, they have begun to tug at ASEAN’s binding principles. Troubling for ASEAN, those tugs have been in different directions. China surely appeals to ASEAN’s prime motivation: economic development. ASEAN countries have seen China as the region’s principal source of economic dynamism over the last decade. That was particularly true after the global credit crisis hobbled the world’s developed economies in 2008. At the time, China increased its investment in infrastructure to maintain its economic growth. That benefited Southeast Asian countries in several ways: as China’s trading partners, as a source of its raw materials, and, in some cases, as targets of its foreign direct investment. Ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in October 2013, China went a step further. Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the creation of a China-led Asian infrastructure bank to meet the region’s most pressing economic development needs. He pledged $50 billion to the bank. If it comes to fruition, China’s contribution towards the development of the region’s Dam Project – Mekong River: Prior Consultation Project Review Report (Vientiane: Mekong River Commission, Mar. 25, 2011), pp. 91-99.
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infrastructure would dwarf the mere $50 million (over three years) that the United States has promised to its Lower Mekong Initiative, a collection of water management and capacity-building activities in Southeast Asia.16 Xi also announced China’s interest in participating in Malaysia’s infrastructure development schemes. In particular, he cited the Kuala Lumpur-toSingapore high-speed railway project that is slated to begin construction in the second half of 2014. The project’s construction would bring the region one step closer to completing its long-discussed rail link between Kunming and Singapore. Such a railway was envisioned as the centerpiece of the ASEAN-Mekong Basin Development Cooperation in 1996. Since then, only the Chinese portion was built, given the lack of resources in Southeast Asia to build the rest of it. If completed, the railway would not only improve ASEAN’s economic integration, but would also bind the region closer to China’s economic sphere.17 By contrast, America’s economic push in the Pacific, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade agreement, has stumbled over provisions that would require changes in government procurement, intellectual property protection, and the treatment of state-owned enterprises. Such changes in Malaysia and Vietnam could shake up their political systems. Some in Malaysia fear that they would undermine the country’s affirmative-action policies that benefit the bumiputera in government procurement. Vietnam has resisted changes that would chip away at its state-owned enterprises and wants an exemption from certain rules for its textile manufacturers. Many others chafe at new intellectual-property protections, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, which largely benefit the United States.18 Such concerns have managed to bring together political foes in Kuala Lumpur, with one side calling it “modern-day American hegemony” and the other denouncing it as a threat to national independence.19 Though it has made progress, the TPP (so far) seems to have won fewer true fans than the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, another regional free-trade agreement that includes China, but not the United States. China also appeals to ASEAN’s core principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. While that was untrue of its revolutionary Jane Perlez and Joe Cochrane, “Obama’s Absence Leaves China as Dominant Force at Asia-Pacific Meeting,” New York Times, Oct. 8, 2013, p. A8; “State Dept. Fact Sheet on Lower Mekong Initiative,” U.S. Department of State, July 13, 2012. 17 It would be interesting to know just how much of China’s interest in international infrastructure projects is due to strategic calculation in Beijing, and how much is a product of the economic self-interest of Chinese finance and construction companies. They have already financed and built many new infrastructure projects across the Indian Ocean, which have worried India as China’s “string of pearls.” See, for instance, “China shows interest in KL-Singapore high-speed rail project,” The Star, Oct. 5, 2013. 18 ASEAN countries are not the only ones with concerns. “Australia objects to ‘investorstate dispute-settlement’ provisions, which it sees as a threat to the government’s ability to stand up to multinationals…. And everywhere, the lack of transparency in the talks feeds conspiracy theories.” “Trade, partnership and politics,” The Economist, Aug. 24, 2013. 19 Stuart Grudgings, “Obama’s bold trade plan faces resistance on Asia trip,” Reuters, Oct. 1, 2013. 16
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communist past, modern-day China largely has adhered to that principle, as demonstrated by China’s voting record at the United Nations, as well as its many commercial deals with African and Latin American regimes. Of course, China believes that other countries should reciprocate its commitment to non-interference, making China prickly about foreign interference into what it considers as its internal affairs (including Taiwan and its maritime disputes). To be sure, there have been exceptions, such as Chinese pressure on foreign countries to cease arms sales to Taiwan and to shut down Falun Gong-affiliated radio stations. But by and large China has respected the right of other countries to “independently choose their own social system and path of development.”20 Meanwhile, many Southeast Asian leaders see the United States as comparatively meddlesome. It often cajoles other countries over human rights or democracy (as was the rationale behind its recently-lifted economic sanctions against Myanmar); and sometimes attempts to foist American-style reforms on them (such as the fiscal and monetary reforms that were tied to rescue funds for Southeast Asia during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997–1998). Not surprisingly, ASEAN countries are happier to accept Chinese offers of trade and aid without (as many) strings.21 However, when it comes to restraint in the use of political coercion or force to settle disputes, most ASEAN counties hold a dimmer view of China. This is particularly true of those Southeast Asian countries that contest China’s claim to the South China Sea and the islands within it. In the past, China has shown its willingness to use force at opportune times to secure its claims. In 1975, it seized the Paracel Islands from a South Vietnam on the verge of defeat and whose American ally had just withdrawn. Similarly, in 1988, it destroyed a Vietnamese naval detachment and occupied six atolls and reefs in the Spratly Islands, as the power of Vietnam’s patron, the Soviet Union, waned in the Pacific. In 1994, it occupied Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef, at what was possibly the nadir in U.S.Philippine relations, after Manila evicted American forces from their bases in the Philippines. Lately, China has disrupted Philippine fishing boats and Vietnamese oil exploration ships with increasing frequency as its military power has grown. And, in 2012, it had a months-long naval standoff with the Philippines over Scarborough 20 China’s Peaceful Development, Information Office of the State Council, People’s Republic of China, Sept. 6, 2011; Andrew Higgins, “China seeks to silence dissent overseas,” The Washington Post, Aug. 5, 2011. 21 But Southeast Asian countries should worry about China’s long-term influence in the region, given the effective pressure that China likely exerted over Cambodia to keep its South China Sea disputes with ASEAN countries off the 2012 ASEAN ministerial meeting agenda. One could argue that while China may have not interfered with the internal affairs of a particular country, it has few reservations over interfering with the internal affairs of the region when its interests are at stake. John Arendshorst, “The Dilemma of NonInterference: Myanmar, Human Rights, and the ASEAN Charter,” Northwestern Journal of International Human Rights 8:1 (Fall 2009), pp. 102-121; International Monetary Fund, “The Asian Crisis: Causes and Cures,” Finance & Development, June 1998, pp. 18-21.
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Shoal. In March 2014, it even mounted a quasi-maritime blockade around Second Thomas Shoal, preventing the Philippines from resupplying its small garrison there. Consequently, a growing number of ASEAN countries have warmed to the idea of the United States as an external balancer to China’s rise.22 It is a role that is well suited to the United States, given its past support for a peaceful resolution to the region’s disputes and its more recent “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia. The appeal of ASEAN’s multilateralism historically has been a harder sell to great powers. Generally, great powers prefer bilateral talks, in large part because their power tends to overshadow that of their smaller counterparts, but also because—with fewer interests to reconcile—agreements can be more easily reached. And so, ASEAN, mindful of China’s rise even in the 1990s, sought to assimilate China into its multilateral dialogues and consensus-driven decision making. For a time, it seemed to work. China agreed to ASEAN’s non-binding code of conduct in the South China Sea in 2002, and was the first dialogue member of ASEAN to sign its Treaty of Amity and Cooperation the following year. But as China grew stronger, its preference for bilateral negotiations stiffened. Many Southeast Asians had hoped that China would come to appreciate the benefits of ASEAN’s multilateralism, messy though it may be. Instead, many Chinese came to believe that their neighbors eventually would recognize China’s power and accommodate its interests. Both sides have been disappointed.23 Over the same period, the United States tacked in the other direction. Although it signed the ASEAN-U.S. Joint Declaration on Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism in 2002, the United States, like China, has preferred more direct relations with Southeast Asian countries. While American security arrangements with Southeast Asian countries have been bilateral rather than multilateral, Washington gradually has embraced ASEAN’s multilateralism. In July 2009 it acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation; and later that year it participated in a multilateral dialogue with ASEAN to discuss how they could collaborate across a wide range of issues. In 2012, ASEAN and the United States launched the fittingly-named Expanded Economic Engagement (E3) Initiative. And though its list of achievements is still short, the E3 Initiative does demonstrate an American willingness to deepen its engagement with ASEAN on a multilateral basis.24 The policies pursued by China and the United States in Southeast Asia, whether intentional or not, have again revealed how ASEAN’s principles can pull the organization’s members apart and cause tensions among them. Those countries Felix K. Chang, “Game On: Southeast Asian Cooperation in the South China Sea?” Geopoliticus, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Apr. 13, 2014, http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2014/04/game-southeast-asian-cooperation-south-chinasea; Stuart Grudgings, “Insight – China’s assertiveness hardens Malaysian stance in sea dispute,” Reuters, Feb. 26, 2014. 23 “ASEAN Hedging Strategy” from China-Southeast Asia Relations in Singapore conference, U.S. Department of State, Aug. 22-24, 2005. 24 “The U.S.-ASEAN Expanded Economic Engagement (E3) Initiative,” U.S. Department of State, Oct. 9, 2013. 22
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that tightly hew to the principles of economic development and non-interference have drawn closer to China. But those that have become more concerned about the use of coercion and force in the region and ASEAN’s multilateral integrity have leant more towards the United States. Neither China nor the United States created those tensions. They always existed within ASEAN. Great power policies did not weaken the commitment of ASEAN members. Rather, ASEAN’s ability to use multilateral consensus to reconcile real differences among its members has never really been strong—especially when those differences are caused by their adherence to the organization’s own principles. Conclusion While no country has sought to make Southeast Asia a zone of contention between China and the United States (least of all the countries of Southeast Asia), many believe that it is becoming one anyway. Those in the United States who think so are frustrated by the seemingly endless prevarication of ASEAN countries in meeting the China challenge; some wish that ASEAN countries simply would choose sides.25 Of course, that is precisely what ASEAN countries do not want to do. Unlike America’s Cold War allies, which had little reason to develop deep economic ties with the Soviet Union (indeed, Moscow discouraged economic links between the Soviet bloc and the West), Southeast Asia’s countries have a strong interest in China’s economic growth—even as they welcome the United States as an external balancer to China’s rise. In any case, Southeast Asians are well aware that American commitment in the future might waver, but China will always be at their doorstep. And so, if the United States tries to force ASEAN countries to choose, it may find the result unsatisfying. That is not to say that ASEAN countries would choose China. But they could choose one of a number of alternatives to becoming a traditional American ally. Some might resist American pressure to choose altogether, leaving the United States awkwardly rebuffed and undercutting its own appeal to ASEAN’s multilateralism. Others may eventually choose the United States, but probably not without some economic incentives or political assurances. Even so, such relationships might not develop into ones that most Americans imagine. They may exist in some middle ground, something more than friends, but less than full-fledged allies. One needs only to look at India for an example. In 2005, the United States tried to cultivate a closer relationship with India. The United States went out of its way to end a civil nuclear cooperation ban that had been imposed on India because of its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the hoped-for close Walter Lohman, “America’s Inadequate ASEAN Approach,” Commentary, Heritage Foundation, Sept. 13, 2013, http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2013/9/americas-inadequate-aseanapproach. 25
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relationship never really materialized. While the two countries have set up a new strategic dialogue, little more has been done. Almost a decade later, India has yet to amend its domestic liability law that effectively shuts out American companies from the very nuclear industry that the United States sacrificed so much political capital to open. Trade issues are unresolved and India remains committed to its non-aligned foreign policy. India even blocked an American initiative designed to help mediate its dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir. And, despite India’s own anxieties about China’s rise, it has hardly strengthened its security ties with the United States for “fear of being seen as part of an American-led, anti-China axis.”26 Countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia also have preferred similar nonaligned stances in the past. There is little reason to believe their preference will change in the future. So, even if they are forced to choose the United States, keeping them in the fold may require additional inducements, entailing more economic and political costs. In the meantime, the United States would have to bear new security risks, since stronger security ties tend to work both ways. Should Southeast Asian countries feel too secure, they may take actions that draw the United States into unwanted conflicts. And finally, forcing countries to choose might be counterproductive. Clever opposition politicians in those countries could portray their governments’ acquiescence to American pressure as a sign of weakness and whip up anti-American sentiment, eventually eroding support for the United States from within. It is far better for the United States to be pulled into the region rather than push its way in. For even though America’s economic ties with Southeast Asia now lag behind the region’s huge, reciprocal relations with China, the closer that Southeast Asian countries find themselves economically entwined with China, the more they seem to seek security assurances from the United States.27 In part, that is because ASEAN countries understand that their internal differences will hinder them from creating a sufficient bulwark against China. National economic and political interests of its member countries already pull ASEAN in different directions. Great power policies now exacerbate that. Sometimes the tension is strong enough to expose ASEAN’s inherent weaknesses. The United States should recognize the limits of the “ASEAN way” and not press ASEAN to do more than it can deliver. Pushing it towards greater unity might, paradoxically, tear the organization asunder.
“Mangled Messages,” The Economist, Jan. 4, 2014. In 2012, ASEAN did far more trade with China ($319 billion) than with the United States ($200 billion). “ASEAN Trade with Major Trading Partners, 2010-2012,” Malaysia, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, July 11, 2013. 26 27
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By Felix K. Chang Felix K. Chang is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in the Asia Program as well as the Program on National Security. He was previously a consultant in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization practice; among his clients were the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Department of the Treasury. Earlier, he served as a senior planner and an intelligence officer in the U.S. Department of Defense and a business advisor at Mobil Oil Corporation. This article is a revised version of a paper he delivered at a conference on "The Great Divergence? Economic Integration and Political Conflict in Asia,” cosponsored by FPRI and the Reserve Officers Association, held in Washington, D.C. in October 2013.
Abstract: Despite worries that ASEAN is becoming weak, the organization remains as strong as it ever was, given the parameters of its design. Its member countries still tightly embrace the organization’s principles, the “ASEAN way.” But simple adherence to those principles can be problematic. ASEAN countries, whose national economic and political interests collide, often appeal to the same principles to back their positions. That tends to pull ASEAN in different directions. Great power policies, particularly those of China and the United States, now exacerbate the situation. At the same time, ASEAN’s reliance on multilateral consensus has made it difficult to reconcile real differences among its member countries or develop unified regional responses. That can be seen in issues from the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River to the South China Sea. The ease with which ASEAN’s principles can come into conflict and its consensus-driven decisionmaking can become deadlocked clearly marks the limits of the “ASEAN way.”
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hen the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand met in Bangkok on August 8, 1967, they had good reason to be concerned about their region. During the 1950s and 1960s, many international and civil conflicts had swept through Southeast Asia, impacting all of these countries to one degree or another. On that day, their foreign ministers gathered to sign a document that would become known as the Bangkok Declaration, founding the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
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In 1967, the region’s security situation was tenuous. Indonesia’s four-year armed confrontation (konfrontasi) against Malaysia and Singapore had just wound down. During that struggle, Indonesia—opposed to the formation of Malaysia from the union of peninsular Malaya, Singapore, and the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak—sent its army to infiltrate and destabilize the new country. Ultimately, a succession of coups within Indonesia toppled its government and brought an end to its konfrontasi policy. But that did not mean that Malaysia and Singapore could rest easy. The Philippines still claimed Sabah, and both felt abandoned by the United Kingdom, which had withdrawn its military forces east of Suez, undermining its security guarantees to them under the Anglo-Malaysian Defense Agreement.1 Adding to their unease were their lingering suspicions about each other. Tensions between Malaysia and Singapore over the former’s preferential policies favoring the ethnic Malays (bumiputera) had earlier fuelled violent ethnic clashes and eventually contributed to Singapore’s ouster from Malaysia in 1965.2 Even more troubling for these five Southeast Asian countries were the various communist insurgencies that had sprouted across the region. Both Malaysia and the Philippines had fought (and, in the latter case, would fight again) communist guerrillas within their borders. Meanwhile, Thailand faced a growing external threat on its eastern border, where Soviet and North Vietnamese-backed guerrillas threatened the governments of neighboring Cambodia and Laos. And slightly further to the east, the long-running conflict between North and South Vietnam had entered into an even more intense phase with the large-scale introduction of American ground forces. ASEAN Principles It was against this dismal backdrop, that ASEAN was founded. Through this new organization, the leaders of ASEAN’s countries hoped to create greater regional stability that would permit them to consolidate their power and begin building their nations. For beyond their security concerns, they faced the daunting tasks of setting up new national governments, pushing through economic reforms, and helping their societies cope with rapid changes in age-old political and social orders. Accordingly, they came to believe that their best chance to achieve that hoped-for stability was to set aside their differences and accentuate what they had in common: an interest in economic development. But Southeast Asian countries realized that even if they could set aside all their differences, they would still be unable to fully resolve the region’s conflicts, The Five Powers Defense Arrangements (FPDA) essentially replaced the Anglo-Malaysian Defense Agreement in 1971. The FPDA brought together Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom to offer its two Southeast Asian members some protection, while they built up their armed forces. Not a mutual defense alliance, the FPDA pledged its members to “consult” with one another in the event of an attack on peninsular Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak were excluded) or Singapore. 2 Thomas Sowell, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 55-77. 1
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because of the big role that external powers played in them. Conscious of that fact, the leaders of most Southeast Asian countries have always maintained a certain wariness towards external powers—whether colonial empires or Cold War superpowers. That sense was further reinforced by their own domestic political authority, which for almost all of them, primarily derived from their nationalist credentials.3 One can see these sentiments woven into the Bangkok Declaration. In it, ASEAN’s original signatories took as their objectives: 1. To accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region through joint endeavors in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of South-East Asian Nations; 2. To promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter; 3. To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields; 4. To provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities in the educational, professional, technical and administrative spheres; 5. To collaborate more effectively for the greater utilization of their agriculture and industries, the expansion of their trade, including the study of the problems of international commodity trade, the improvement of their transportation and communications facilities and the raising of the living standards of their peoples; 6. To promote South-East Asian studies; 7. To maintain close and beneficial cooperation with existing international and regional organizations with similar aims and purposes, and explore all avenues for even closer cooperation among themselves.4 The objectives repeated the themes of regional collaboration and cooperation. Underlying both were ASEAN’s abiding interests in economic development and the means to achieve it. Indeed, economic development has remained the prime motivator behind ASEAN to the present day. But almost as notable was what the Bangkok declaration excluded. It avoided any specific mention of political or security goals, which may have seemed too ambitious at the time. Yet implicit in the declaration was a desire for greater regional stability. 3 Southeast Asian leaders at the time were largely drawn from the secular, nationalist elites of their countries, rather than being true representatives of their societies. Lucian W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 92. 4 Association of Southeast Asian Nations, “The ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) of August 8, 1967.”
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One thing that Southeast Asian countries could have done to achieve that regional stability would have been to structure a balance of power. But given vast differences in population and resources across the region’s countries, doing so would have required the long-term involvement of external powers—something Southeast Asian leaders were reluctant to accept. Thus, ASEAN’s founding countries chose instead to seek greater regional stability through collaboration and cooperation.5 For such a scheme to work, the ASEAN states would have to restrain themselves from using either political coercion or military force. The way they ultimately chose to do this was to adopt a very strict form of national sovereignty. That approach was given full expression in the guiding principles of ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia in 1976: 1. Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, and national identity of all nations; 2. The right of every state to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion; 3. Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another; 4. Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful manner; 5. Renunciation of the threat or use of force, and 6. Effective cooperation among themselves.6 The framers of the treaty clearly emphasized the sanctity of states’ sovereignty. The treaty’s first three guiding principles directly referred to some expression of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Going further, its next two (and to some extent three) principles addressed how international differences or disputes should be resolved. In short, an ASEAN country should not interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbors and should refrain from using political coercion or military force in settling its external affairs. The combination of the treaty’s emphasis on national sovereignty and the objectives of the Bangkok Declaration have come to define ASEAN’s approach to improving regional stability. It subordinated its members’ external security concerns about one another to their shared interests in economic development and internal security. In practice, during the 1970s that meant that even though ASEAN countries found common cause with the United States in battling their internal communist insurgencies, they remained hesitant to directly support American efforts against North Vietnam. 5 ASEAN’s success in creating an organization founded on cooperation can be attributed to several unusual circumstances, the primary one being that the leaders of all five founding countries were not only practical men with similar backgrounds and outlooks, but also able to exercise sufficient control over their countries through military or single-party rule to ensure compliance. George W. Downs, David M. Rocke, and Randolph M. Siverson, “Arms Races and Cooperation,” in Kenneth A. Oye, ed., Cooperation under Anarchy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 118-146. 6 “Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia of February 24, 1976,” Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
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In the decades since the declaration and treaty were signed, these key ASEAN preferences collectively have become known as the “ASEAN way.” Even as ASEAN’s membership grew to encompass all of the countries in Southeast Asia through the 1980s and 1990s, the organization has rarely deviated from its “way,” particularly its dictum of non-interference. That was because the leaders of ASEAN’s new member countries—with backgrounds and experiences with the international environment similar to those of ASEAN’s founders—largely came to order their economic and security priorities in a way that mirrored that of their predecessors. Helpfully, the decline in international tensions after the Cold War eased the external pressures on Southeast Asia, which could have fettered that ordering. Only recently has that trend reversed with China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.7 As appealing as the ideas embodied in ASEAN may have been to Southeast Asians, most observers in the 1970s considered the organization to be more like a talk shop than a practical instrument of international politics. Despite its rhetoric, it accomplished little at first. When ASEAN tried to secure economic concessions cooperatively from countries outside the region, it was wholly unsuccessful. As a result, its members continued to cultivate independently their own relationships with external powers. But North Vietnam’s victory over its southern rival in 1975 gave ASEAN a new impetus for cooperation. Since all of ASEAN’s member countries at the time had already experienced some form of communist unrest, they immediately recognized the threat that a unified communist Vietnam could pose. Hence, it was during this time when ASEAN crafted its more security-oriented Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia.8 Yet, in spite of the new danger, ASEAN countries kept the United States at arm’s length—just close enough to balance the communist threat. As early as 1973, Thailand—the ASEAN country most exposed to the advance of Vietnamese communism—began to urge the United States to withdraw its forces from Thai territory. As a result, the American presence in Thailand that once totaled over 300 combat aircraft was completely drawn down by 1976.9 Even the Philippines, nominally America’s strongest Southeast Asian ally, sought to distance itself from the United States. Indeed, a worried Washington at the time felt pressured to rush its negotiations with Manila over U.S. bases in the Philippines to ensure their Hiro Katsumata, “Reconstruction of Diplomatic Norms in Southeast Asia: The Case for Strict Adherence to the ‘ASEAN way,’” Contemporary Southeast Asia 25:1 (2003), pp.104-121; Gillian Goh, “The ‘ASEAN Way’: Non-Intervention and ASEAN’s Role in Conflict Management,” Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, Spring 2003, pp. 113-118. 8 Shee Poon-Kim, “A Decade of ASEAN, 1967-1977,” Asian Survey 17:8 (1977), pp. 753770. 9 The American withdrawal accelerated in the aftermath of the Mayaguez Incident in May 1975 when the United States used Thailand’s U-Tapao naval airfield to support its rescue mission despite Bangkok’s official refusal to permit it. The Thai government considered the act a violation of its national sovereignty and called for the last American forces to leave Thailand. 7
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continued operation. Clearly Southeast Asian reservations about external powers extended to even those that they considered friendly. That is still true today. Even as some ASEAN countries have reached out to external powers to balance the new challenge of China’s rise, they continue to closely guard their national sovereignty and reject notions of “alignment” with any one external camp.10 Although ASEAN was never able to remove the potential of external threats to its member countries, it did excel at creating a series of intergovernmental dialogues within its membership. ASEAN hoped that through such dialogue its member countries could reduce the level of international disagreements and find cooperative solutions to regional problems. The success of the organization’s various dialogues has generally depended on the willing participation of its member countries and their ability to arrive at a multilateral consensus. With a common focus on economic development, ASEAN dialogues have proven effective in dealing with several intra-regional issues, such as lowering trade barriers and creating an international response to piracy in the region’s shipping lanes. Several Southeast Asian leaders even attribute the peace that the region has enjoyed since the 1980s to ASEAN. While that may be giving the organization too much credit, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed certainly lost no opportunity to laud the “ASEAN way” as the model for international cooperation. Limits of the ‘ASEAN Way’ Some experts now fear that ASEAN is becoming divided, weak, and susceptible to mounting Chinese influence. But they miss the point. Given the parameters of its design, ASEAN remains as strong as it ever was. Its member countries still tightly embrace the “ASEAN way.” This is quite remarkable, considering the great diversity of interests among them. Though the “ASEAN way” is most closely associated with the principle of non-interference, the organization’s “way” can be said to include five distinct features: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Focus on economic development; Non-interference in the internal affairs of other states; Restrained use of coercion or force in security conflicts within ASEAN; Preference for non-alignment with external powers; Decision-making based on multilateral consensus.
Telegram 282411 from the Department of State to the Embassy in Thailand, Nov. 29, 1975 (Library of Congress, Henry Kissinger Papers, Geopolitical File, Container CL 238, Thailand, Jun. 1974-Feb. 1976); Memorandum From Secretary of State Kissinger to President Ford, Washington, June 13, 1975 (Ford Library, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific, Box 1, Southeast Asia); Memorandum from John A. Froebe and William L. Stearman of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, July 20, 1973 (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 565, Country Files, Far East, Thailand, Vol. 10, 1973-); Telegram 4623 from the Embassy in Thailand to the Department of State, Mar. 22, 1973 (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 565, Country Files, Far East, Thailand, Vol. 10, 1973-). 10
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During the 1980s and early 1990s, these features were well-suited to bring greater stability to the region. Adherence among ASEAN countries to the principles of non-interference and restrained use of coercion or force enabled them to focus their energies on creating fast-growing “tiger economies.” In fact, ASEAN countries at the time cooperated to form cross-border intelligence-sharing and security arrangements to help each other subdue their remaining internal insurgencies.11 Moreover, the end of the Cold War removed the external pressure on ASEAN countries to align with particular great powers, which largely had withdrawn from Southeast Asia by the early 1990s. And finally, ASEAN’s multilateral, consensus-driven decision-making process made the organization appealing to other non-member Southeast Asian countries, which may have been worried about encroachments on their sovereignty. That helped ASEAN rapidly expand its membership and, in doing so, its sphere of stability. However, ASEAN’s design has inherent limitations. ASEAN has struggled to deal with challenges that bring the organization’s guiding principles into conflict with one another. ASEAN’s tradition of dialogue, which has long been the organization’s default dispute-resolution mechanism, has proven ill-suited to address many of the new disagreements among its member countries. Dialogue may be effective at reducing the misperceptions that can cause disagreements, but it is often ineffective when those disagreements spring from real differences in interests. In the latter cases, ASEAN has been unable to persuade individual members to bend to the will of the rest of the organization. Hence, ASEAN has wrestled inconclusively with cases like: Indonesia’s forest fire haze which occasionally blankets Singapore, Malaysia, and the southern Philippines; informal Malaysian support for Islamic separatists in southern Thailand; and the dispute between Thailand and Myanmar over the former’s tolerance for ethnic rebels fighting Myanmar’s government and latter’s tolerance of drug trafficking across Thailand’s border. One particularly thorny issue has been the building of the Xayaburi hydroelectric dam on a section of the Mekong River between Thailand and Laos. Since it was proposed, the dam has divided the region.12 On the one hand, Thailand and Laos want to see the dam built. Bangkok is concerned that without the dam’s new power generation capacity rising electricity prices could derail Thailand’s industrial development. In addition, Thai companies and banks that are involved in the dam’s construction and financing have a direct stake in its completion. So, too, does Laos, which views the dam as a key component of its economic development strategy to turn the country into the “battery of Southeast Asia.” Plus, royalties and Amitav Acharya, “The Association of Southeast Asian Nations: ‘Security Community’ or ‘Defense Community’?” Pacific Affairs, Summer 1991, p. 166. 12 For a more nuanced account of the discord see, Felix K. Chang, “Hydroelectric Power and the Mekong River: Energy, Environment, and Politics in Southeast Asia,” in Globalization, Development and Security in Asia, ed., Zhiqun Zhu (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2014), pp. 87-108. 11
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taxes from the dam’s electricity production would enable Laos to fund its longsought infrastructure build out.13 On the other hand, the Xayaburi dam will block the free flow of the Mekong River and put the dam’s managers in control of its waters. That worries downstream Cambodia and Vietnam, which have seen other dams (including their own) contribute to periodic drought and flooding. Moreover, the river’s natural water flow is crucial to the migration of fish and, thus, contributes to the health of the region’s fisheries, which most rural Cambodians rely on for food and income. It is also vital for carrying nutrient-rich sediments to the Mekong River delta, where over half of Vietnam’s agricultural cultivation occurs. There, the water flow not only helps to improve the delta’s soil fertility, but also prevents saltwater from the South China Sea from fouling the land.14 Hence, the Xayaburi dam’s construction has brought the economic development plans of Thailand and Laos into conflict with the traditional livelihoods of communities in Cambodia and Vietnam. From an ASEAN perspective, Thailand and Laos reasonably could claim that their downstream neighbors were impinging on their sovereign right to pursue their economic development plans. But Cambodia and Vietnam could also argue that their upstream neighbors were interfering in their internal affairs. And all four countries could contend that they were focused on their economic welfare. The Mekong River Commission (MRC)—an ASEAN-like intergovernmental body—has tried to reconcile the river’s uses. It launched a detailed study to evaluate the dam’s environmental impacts. But after that study was completed in early 2011, it failed to reach a consensus decision over whether the dam’s construction should proceed. A year later, the MRC amended its prior nondecision. It requested that Laos delay the dam’s construction until more environmental impact studies could be conducted. But since the MRC’s requests are non-binding (a nod to ASEAN’s preference for non-interference and nonconfrontation), Laos ignored the MRC’s request and pushed ahead with the dam’s construction.15 “Thailand Pushes Xayaburi Dam,” Asia Sentinel, Feb. 29, 2012, http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4280&Itemi d=437; Teerapong Pomun, “Living River Siam: A Thai Perspective on Proposed Mainstream Mekong Dams,” Stimson Center, Sep. 21, 2011; Mekong River Commission, Proposed Xayaburi Dam Project – Mekong River: Prior Consultation Project Review Report (Vientiane: Mekong River Commission, Mar. 25, 2011), pp. 91-99; Ravic R. Huso, “Laos: Plans for Five Large Dams on the Mekong Mainstream Advance,” U.S. Department of State cable, Feb. 15, 2008, Wikileaks, http://www.wikileaks.org/cable/2008/02/08VIENTIANE111.html. 14 “Fish-friendly?” The Economist, Sept. 7, 2013; “Vietnam and Cambodia tell Laos to stop $3.5bn Mekong River dam project,” The Guardian, Jan. 18, 2013. 15 Rather than reopen the debate over the controversial Xayaburi dam, the MRC chose not to even discuss the issue at its January 2013 annual meeting. Ame Trandem, “Xayaburi Dam Left Off MRC Council Agenda,” International Rivers, Jan. 15, 2013, http://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/xayaburi-dam-left-off-mrc-council-agenda7795; Daniel Ten Kate, “Laos to Start Building Mekong Dam This Week Amid Opposition,” Bloomberg News, Nov. 5, 2012; Mekong River Commission, Proposed Xayaburi 13
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The debate among ASEAN countries over the Xayaburi dam demonstrates how their adherence to ASEAN’s principles can sometimes make it harder for them to reach real solutions. Both sides in the debate could appeal to different (and sometimes the same) principles to back their positions. The ease with which ASEAN’s principles can come into conflict and its organizational decision-making can become deadlocked clearly marks the limits of the “ASEAN way.” Moreover, those limits cast a shadow beyond the borders of ASEAN. They also make any unified regional response more difficult. The internal impasse within ASEAN over the Xayaburi dam ultimately undermined the region’s ability to address its common concern over China’s far larger dam building program further upstream on the Mekong River. Hence, it is hardly surprising that ASEAN has been unable to find a cooperative way to deal with China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Sea. Stricter adherence to ASEAN’s principles would do little to tackle such challenges. Impact of Great Power Policies on ASEAN Similar appeals to ASEAN’s principles are now coming from outside the organization, as great powers have returned to the region. While the ASEAN treaty expressed “the right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference,” it does not limit its member countries from pursuing external relationships. So even as some countries—like Indonesia and Malaysia—have continued to keep their distance from external powers, others recently have sought to attract them, as in the cases of Cambodia and the Philippines. Cambodia welcomed deeper ties with China in order to secure strings-free financing for its infrastructure development projects. Meanwhile, the Philippines strengthened its security relationship with the United States in response to China’s assertive actions in the South China Sea. But as China and the United States have become more involved in Southeast Asia, they have begun to tug at ASEAN’s binding principles. Troubling for ASEAN, those tugs have been in different directions. China surely appeals to ASEAN’s prime motivation: economic development. ASEAN countries have seen China as the region’s principal source of economic dynamism over the last decade. That was particularly true after the global credit crisis hobbled the world’s developed economies in 2008. At the time, China increased its investment in infrastructure to maintain its economic growth. That benefited Southeast Asian countries in several ways: as China’s trading partners, as a source of its raw materials, and, in some cases, as targets of its foreign direct investment. Ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in October 2013, China went a step further. Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the creation of a China-led Asian infrastructure bank to meet the region’s most pressing economic development needs. He pledged $50 billion to the bank. If it comes to fruition, China’s contribution towards the development of the region’s Dam Project – Mekong River: Prior Consultation Project Review Report (Vientiane: Mekong River Commission, Mar. 25, 2011), pp. 91-99.
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infrastructure would dwarf the mere $50 million (over three years) that the United States has promised to its Lower Mekong Initiative, a collection of water management and capacity-building activities in Southeast Asia.16 Xi also announced China’s interest in participating in Malaysia’s infrastructure development schemes. In particular, he cited the Kuala Lumpur-toSingapore high-speed railway project that is slated to begin construction in the second half of 2014. The project’s construction would bring the region one step closer to completing its long-discussed rail link between Kunming and Singapore. Such a railway was envisioned as the centerpiece of the ASEAN-Mekong Basin Development Cooperation in 1996. Since then, only the Chinese portion was built, given the lack of resources in Southeast Asia to build the rest of it. If completed, the railway would not only improve ASEAN’s economic integration, but would also bind the region closer to China’s economic sphere.17 By contrast, America’s economic push in the Pacific, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade agreement, has stumbled over provisions that would require changes in government procurement, intellectual property protection, and the treatment of state-owned enterprises. Such changes in Malaysia and Vietnam could shake up their political systems. Some in Malaysia fear that they would undermine the country’s affirmative-action policies that benefit the bumiputera in government procurement. Vietnam has resisted changes that would chip away at its state-owned enterprises and wants an exemption from certain rules for its textile manufacturers. Many others chafe at new intellectual-property protections, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, which largely benefit the United States.18 Such concerns have managed to bring together political foes in Kuala Lumpur, with one side calling it “modern-day American hegemony” and the other denouncing it as a threat to national independence.19 Though it has made progress, the TPP (so far) seems to have won fewer true fans than the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, another regional free-trade agreement that includes China, but not the United States. China also appeals to ASEAN’s core principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. While that was untrue of its revolutionary Jane Perlez and Joe Cochrane, “Obama’s Absence Leaves China as Dominant Force at Asia-Pacific Meeting,” New York Times, Oct. 8, 2013, p. A8; “State Dept. Fact Sheet on Lower Mekong Initiative,” U.S. Department of State, July 13, 2012. 17 It would be interesting to know just how much of China’s interest in international infrastructure projects is due to strategic calculation in Beijing, and how much is a product of the economic self-interest of Chinese finance and construction companies. They have already financed and built many new infrastructure projects across the Indian Ocean, which have worried India as China’s “string of pearls.” See, for instance, “China shows interest in KL-Singapore high-speed rail project,” The Star, Oct. 5, 2013. 18 ASEAN countries are not the only ones with concerns. “Australia objects to ‘investorstate dispute-settlement’ provisions, which it sees as a threat to the government’s ability to stand up to multinationals…. And everywhere, the lack of transparency in the talks feeds conspiracy theories.” “Trade, partnership and politics,” The Economist, Aug. 24, 2013. 19 Stuart Grudgings, “Obama’s bold trade plan faces resistance on Asia trip,” Reuters, Oct. 1, 2013. 16
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communist past, modern-day China largely has adhered to that principle, as demonstrated by China’s voting record at the United Nations, as well as its many commercial deals with African and Latin American regimes. Of course, China believes that other countries should reciprocate its commitment to non-interference, making China prickly about foreign interference into what it considers as its internal affairs (including Taiwan and its maritime disputes). To be sure, there have been exceptions, such as Chinese pressure on foreign countries to cease arms sales to Taiwan and to shut down Falun Gong-affiliated radio stations. But by and large China has respected the right of other countries to “independently choose their own social system and path of development.”20 Meanwhile, many Southeast Asian leaders see the United States as comparatively meddlesome. It often cajoles other countries over human rights or democracy (as was the rationale behind its recently-lifted economic sanctions against Myanmar); and sometimes attempts to foist American-style reforms on them (such as the fiscal and monetary reforms that were tied to rescue funds for Southeast Asia during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997–1998). Not surprisingly, ASEAN countries are happier to accept Chinese offers of trade and aid without (as many) strings.21 However, when it comes to restraint in the use of political coercion or force to settle disputes, most ASEAN counties hold a dimmer view of China. This is particularly true of those Southeast Asian countries that contest China’s claim to the South China Sea and the islands within it. In the past, China has shown its willingness to use force at opportune times to secure its claims. In 1975, it seized the Paracel Islands from a South Vietnam on the verge of defeat and whose American ally had just withdrawn. Similarly, in 1988, it destroyed a Vietnamese naval detachment and occupied six atolls and reefs in the Spratly Islands, as the power of Vietnam’s patron, the Soviet Union, waned in the Pacific. In 1994, it occupied Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef, at what was possibly the nadir in U.S.Philippine relations, after Manila evicted American forces from their bases in the Philippines. Lately, China has disrupted Philippine fishing boats and Vietnamese oil exploration ships with increasing frequency as its military power has grown. And, in 2012, it had a months-long naval standoff with the Philippines over Scarborough 20 China’s Peaceful Development, Information Office of the State Council, People’s Republic of China, Sept. 6, 2011; Andrew Higgins, “China seeks to silence dissent overseas,” The Washington Post, Aug. 5, 2011. 21 But Southeast Asian countries should worry about China’s long-term influence in the region, given the effective pressure that China likely exerted over Cambodia to keep its South China Sea disputes with ASEAN countries off the 2012 ASEAN ministerial meeting agenda. One could argue that while China may have not interfered with the internal affairs of a particular country, it has few reservations over interfering with the internal affairs of the region when its interests are at stake. John Arendshorst, “The Dilemma of NonInterference: Myanmar, Human Rights, and the ASEAN Charter,” Northwestern Journal of International Human Rights 8:1 (Fall 2009), pp. 102-121; International Monetary Fund, “The Asian Crisis: Causes and Cures,” Finance & Development, June 1998, pp. 18-21.
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Shoal. In March 2014, it even mounted a quasi-maritime blockade around Second Thomas Shoal, preventing the Philippines from resupplying its small garrison there. Consequently, a growing number of ASEAN countries have warmed to the idea of the United States as an external balancer to China’s rise.22 It is a role that is well suited to the United States, given its past support for a peaceful resolution to the region’s disputes and its more recent “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia. The appeal of ASEAN’s multilateralism historically has been a harder sell to great powers. Generally, great powers prefer bilateral talks, in large part because their power tends to overshadow that of their smaller counterparts, but also because—with fewer interests to reconcile—agreements can be more easily reached. And so, ASEAN, mindful of China’s rise even in the 1990s, sought to assimilate China into its multilateral dialogues and consensus-driven decision making. For a time, it seemed to work. China agreed to ASEAN’s non-binding code of conduct in the South China Sea in 2002, and was the first dialogue member of ASEAN to sign its Treaty of Amity and Cooperation the following year. But as China grew stronger, its preference for bilateral negotiations stiffened. Many Southeast Asians had hoped that China would come to appreciate the benefits of ASEAN’s multilateralism, messy though it may be. Instead, many Chinese came to believe that their neighbors eventually would recognize China’s power and accommodate its interests. Both sides have been disappointed.23 Over the same period, the United States tacked in the other direction. Although it signed the ASEAN-U.S. Joint Declaration on Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism in 2002, the United States, like China, has preferred more direct relations with Southeast Asian countries. While American security arrangements with Southeast Asian countries have been bilateral rather than multilateral, Washington gradually has embraced ASEAN’s multilateralism. In July 2009 it acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation; and later that year it participated in a multilateral dialogue with ASEAN to discuss how they could collaborate across a wide range of issues. In 2012, ASEAN and the United States launched the fittingly-named Expanded Economic Engagement (E3) Initiative. And though its list of achievements is still short, the E3 Initiative does demonstrate an American willingness to deepen its engagement with ASEAN on a multilateral basis.24 The policies pursued by China and the United States in Southeast Asia, whether intentional or not, have again revealed how ASEAN’s principles can pull the organization’s members apart and cause tensions among them. Those countries Felix K. Chang, “Game On: Southeast Asian Cooperation in the South China Sea?” Geopoliticus, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Apr. 13, 2014, http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2014/04/game-southeast-asian-cooperation-south-chinasea; Stuart Grudgings, “Insight – China’s assertiveness hardens Malaysian stance in sea dispute,” Reuters, Feb. 26, 2014. 23 “ASEAN Hedging Strategy” from China-Southeast Asia Relations in Singapore conference, U.S. Department of State, Aug. 22-24, 2005. 24 “The U.S.-ASEAN Expanded Economic Engagement (E3) Initiative,” U.S. Department of State, Oct. 9, 2013. 22
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that tightly hew to the principles of economic development and non-interference have drawn closer to China. But those that have become more concerned about the use of coercion and force in the region and ASEAN’s multilateral integrity have leant more towards the United States. Neither China nor the United States created those tensions. They always existed within ASEAN. Great power policies did not weaken the commitment of ASEAN members. Rather, ASEAN’s ability to use multilateral consensus to reconcile real differences among its members has never really been strong—especially when those differences are caused by their adherence to the organization’s own principles. Conclusion While no country has sought to make Southeast Asia a zone of contention between China and the United States (least of all the countries of Southeast Asia), many believe that it is becoming one anyway. Those in the United States who think so are frustrated by the seemingly endless prevarication of ASEAN countries in meeting the China challenge; some wish that ASEAN countries simply would choose sides.25 Of course, that is precisely what ASEAN countries do not want to do. Unlike America’s Cold War allies, which had little reason to develop deep economic ties with the Soviet Union (indeed, Moscow discouraged economic links between the Soviet bloc and the West), Southeast Asia’s countries have a strong interest in China’s economic growth—even as they welcome the United States as an external balancer to China’s rise. In any case, Southeast Asians are well aware that American commitment in the future might waver, but China will always be at their doorstep. And so, if the United States tries to force ASEAN countries to choose, it may find the result unsatisfying. That is not to say that ASEAN countries would choose China. But they could choose one of a number of alternatives to becoming a traditional American ally. Some might resist American pressure to choose altogether, leaving the United States awkwardly rebuffed and undercutting its own appeal to ASEAN’s multilateralism. Others may eventually choose the United States, but probably not without some economic incentives or political assurances. Even so, such relationships might not develop into ones that most Americans imagine. They may exist in some middle ground, something more than friends, but less than full-fledged allies. One needs only to look at India for an example. In 2005, the United States tried to cultivate a closer relationship with India. The United States went out of its way to end a civil nuclear cooperation ban that had been imposed on India because of its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the hoped-for close Walter Lohman, “America’s Inadequate ASEAN Approach,” Commentary, Heritage Foundation, Sept. 13, 2013, http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2013/9/americas-inadequate-aseanapproach. 25
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relationship never really materialized. While the two countries have set up a new strategic dialogue, little more has been done. Almost a decade later, India has yet to amend its domestic liability law that effectively shuts out American companies from the very nuclear industry that the United States sacrificed so much political capital to open. Trade issues are unresolved and India remains committed to its non-aligned foreign policy. India even blocked an American initiative designed to help mediate its dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir. And, despite India’s own anxieties about China’s rise, it has hardly strengthened its security ties with the United States for “fear of being seen as part of an American-led, anti-China axis.”26 Countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia also have preferred similar nonaligned stances in the past. There is little reason to believe their preference will change in the future. So, even if they are forced to choose the United States, keeping them in the fold may require additional inducements, entailing more economic and political costs. In the meantime, the United States would have to bear new security risks, since stronger security ties tend to work both ways. Should Southeast Asian countries feel too secure, they may take actions that draw the United States into unwanted conflicts. And finally, forcing countries to choose might be counterproductive. Clever opposition politicians in those countries could portray their governments’ acquiescence to American pressure as a sign of weakness and whip up anti-American sentiment, eventually eroding support for the United States from within. It is far better for the United States to be pulled into the region rather than push its way in. For even though America’s economic ties with Southeast Asia now lag behind the region’s huge, reciprocal relations with China, the closer that Southeast Asian countries find themselves economically entwined with China, the more they seem to seek security assurances from the United States.27 In part, that is because ASEAN countries understand that their internal differences will hinder them from creating a sufficient bulwark against China. National economic and political interests of its member countries already pull ASEAN in different directions. Great power policies now exacerbate that. Sometimes the tension is strong enough to expose ASEAN’s inherent weaknesses. The United States should recognize the limits of the “ASEAN way” and not press ASEAN to do more than it can deliver. Pushing it towards greater unity might, paradoxically, tear the organization asunder.
“Mangled Messages,” The Economist, Jan. 4, 2014. In 2012, ASEAN did far more trade with China ($319 billion) than with the United States ($200 billion). “ASEAN Trade with Major Trading Partners, 2010-2012,” Malaysia, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, July 11, 2013. 26 27
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