Appreciating Asean

 

Regional togetherness: Asean’s first summits were irregular and distantly spaced. Now two summits are held regularly every year. — Bernama

Asean is a realities-grounded institution with certain strengths, which are hidden only to those who fail to appreciate them.

AS regional summits go, Asean’s has been growing by leaps and bounds. Not that this positive attribute is universally acknowledged, as is typical with Asean attributes.

Asean’s first summits were irregular and distantly spaced, and at one point even 12 years apart. Now two summits are held regularly every year, either together or spaced apart by months, with related Asean-led meetings in series.

Between summits, several hundred meetings of Asean officials are held each year to implement, oversee, and calibrate policies. The numerous meetings have prompted a misperception that Asean is merely a talkshop. 

Asean’s irregular summits proved that Asean leaders meet only when needed, as circumstances require, and not for the sake of meeting. Asean has never prioritised form over function, or ceremony over substance.

Asean is popular and successful for the common familiarity and shared comfort level leaders feel when they meet. These come only with frequent meetings forming a seamless web of mutual and reciprocal goodwill.

Critics cite the failure of the 2012 Asean Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Cambodia to issue a joint communiqué at its conclusion as a sign of weakness and inefficacy. But it takes decisiveness to opt not to issue a statement rather than produce a bland and meaningless one just for the sake of doing so.

Formal meetings are judged by how or whether they serve their purpose while in session, not by the feel good diplomatic summaries issued afterwards. As a process, Asean proceedings have seldom if ever been “full glasses”, but the uninitiated would see the “glasses” only as half-empty.

Asean’s core purpose has always been the quality of membership relations. How others see it is up to them, but this is no more than a concern for Asean’s public relations department if there is one.

Laos’ Asean chairmanship this year and its hosting of the 44th and 45th Summit over the week have predictably been scrutinised critically. A typical complaint is the seeming absence of any definitive resolution on the Myanmar impasse or the South China Sea disputes.

No annual summit is like a task force producing fail-safe solutions for outstanding issues. A small and underdeveloped Laos is already doing its best tackling the mammoth logistical and financial demands of hosting a series of international conferences at the highest official levels.

Any other country chairing Asean this year would face the same challenges. Asean makes no judgment about the economic status of members while helping less endowed members fulfil their financial obligations.

Asean is better at avoiding upheavals like Myanmar’s or war-torn Cambodia’s before its 1999 membership, than in conclusively resolving conflict that has occurred. It’s still not perfect, of course.

Asean’s record still compares favourably with the European Union’s, which failed to prevent the Kosovo and Ukraine wars. Nato (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) as a military alliance may mitigate these conflicts but has instead instigated and amplified the Ukraine war.

The EU and Asean were once described as the world’s most successful regional organisations, in that order, but that was before Brexit, when Britain exited the EU in 2020. No Asean country has sought to leave despite some challenges, while several countries not eligible to join have nonetheless tried.

The next and final member of Asean is Timor-Leste, the former Portuguese territory and Indo-nesian province of East Timor. It is the only sovereign nation in South-East Asia still to join Asean.

Others, from Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea to Mongolia and Turkey, have reportedly sought Asean membership, but were never seriously considered. Timor-Leste is different not least because it is in South-East Asia, although its Asean journey has been long and challenging.

In 2006 Timor-Leste submitted a “soft application” to join, and the following year Asean signalled a “willingness in principle” to consider it. Most Asean member states endorsed its application, but not all.

Meanwhile Dili worked hard to fulfil membership requirements by acceding to Asean norms and conventions, including the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in South-East Asia. It even introduced Asean Studies in schools, unlike most Asean countries.

Dili formally applied to join Asean in 2011, and Asean responded in 2022 with an “agreement in principle” to admit it. Membership remains a work in progress, with the Laos Summit during the week a part of that journey.

The state of the South China Sea’s multiple disputes has also been taken as a measure of Asean’s competence. Any catastrophe resulting from the disputes would be of concern to Asean as it would be to anyone else.

However, the disputes are between individual sovereign nations as neighbours and involves less than half the Asean membership. Asean is quietly confident that they can be resolved or are resolvable with time, provided there is no ulterior motive or foreign agenda at play.

Asean understands that the region has managed challenges before and wants that to continue. Anything less will not be Asean, nor will the region be sovereign.

Bunn Nagara is director and senior fellow at the BRI Caucus for Asia-Pacific, and an honorary fellow at the Perak Academy. The views expressed here are solely his own.

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China's 'moment' at ASEAN Summit a wake-up call for US sincerity

Western media have appeared to function under a consistent principle – whenever international affairs are at play, they are framed as a stage for major power rivalry. Unsurprisingly, the just-concluded ASEAN Summit was once again interpreted through the lens of US-China competition. This time, however, what was revealed was not US' diplomatic advantage, but rather its increasingly visible diplomatic predicament.

Understanding BRICS

 

Western institutions like Goldman Sachs expect BRICS to dominate the world economy by 2050, but still cannot understand how it works despite its strengths.

FOUR countries, each with considerable growth promise, were exploring greater trade and investment prospects at the turn of the century.

They were already among the world’s top 10 countries by way of geographical spread, population size, and national economic strength in GDP, in both nominal and purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. They were also working well together.

Brazil, Russia, India, and China then came together in 2009, and Goldman Sachs nicknamed them by the acronym “BRIC”. South Africa joined the following year to make it “BRICS”.

Almost immediately, Western scepticism worked overtime. It ranged from how a grouping with no discernible identity could achieve anything, to how long such an association with no conceivable purpose could possibly last. The sceptics did not seem to notice that the five countries happened to form a quarter of the Group of 20 (G20). Serious observers had known that the G20 was steadily surpassing the Western-led Group of 7 (G7) countries in global significance.

The International Monetary Fund had initially identified the G7 as the world’s leading economies. Yet just the five BRICS countries had exceeded the G7 in terms of GDP in PPP – with the promise of more.

Clearly, BRICS represented a shift in the global economy’s tectonic

plates. A new planetary alignment in economic power was underway, but this could not be understood through old ways of thinking.

Within the typically narrow Western perspective, an alliance could hold only by targeting significant others outside the group – or had clear affinities among members in seeking to target others.

Evidently, BRICS did not fit this notion of an intergovernmental grouping to work. BRICS was not about targeting anyone, but about developing members’ potential for building a more equitable global order together.

Obviously, those intent on keeping the Global South permanently down will be alarmed by BRICS’ development. However, such neocolonial attitudes are now the ones fading out.

BRICS is about the Global South spreading its wings, in solidarity with transnational partners and megatrends moving in that direction.

To emerging regions in the developing world this is identity and purpose enough, even if it is a blur to former colonial powers.

Typically, many in the West cannot fathom how BRICS can

nd appeal to any “friendly” or nonaligned country. They assume that countries come together only as an “alliance”, which in turn must work to rival or oppose others in zero-sum fashion.

They tend to forget that BRICS began as a small community of emerging economies exploring greater trade and investment opportunities. Economic development is crucial to countries of the Global South because colonialism had robbed them of it.

Among the Global North’s misperceptions is that BRICS is a rival to the G7. That is a mistake in terms of BRICS’ identity and purpose.

Rivalry is another party’s definitive challenge to the point of rendering one redundant or irrelevant, and then usurping one’s purpose through displacement.

To that end, the G20 should be paired with the G7 and BRICS with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The G20 and G7 are competing entities much like BRICS and the OECD, not BRICS and the G7.

Each group has agency, yet only represents emerging or receding megatrends. Countering “unfavourable” megatrends is an enormous or impossible task that requires addressing their historic undercurrents, not the organisations themselves.

The fact that the G20 includes major BRICS countries shows that the G7 as its Western component, in ceding some influence, is facing the global shift towards multipolarity. This reality should be acknowledged and managed intelligently.

Most countries see no contradiction between joining BRICS and continuing healthy relationships with Western powers for mutual benefit. Of course, such relationships have to be based on equality and mutual respect between sovereign nations, not any kind of neocolonial or patron-client arrangement.

Indonesia reportedly considered joining BRICS, only to shelve the idea in prioritising OECD membership. Malaysia has applied to join BRICS, with an intention to join the OECD as well.

India as an important partner of the West is a leading member of BRICS. Vietnam is another Western partner considering BRICS membership.

US ally Thailand has applied for membership, while Laos and even its former “protectorate” master France have indicated interest in BRICS. Another Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) member Turkey showed interest in 2018 and applied for membership this year.

Naturally, nonaligned Malaysia seeks better economic opportunities with BRICS. After joining the Us-led Indo-pacific Economic Framework and the Trans-pacific Partnership (now Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-pacific Partnership) once led by the US to exclude China, for Malaysia to snub BRICS would be to tilt against its main trading partner.

BRICS membership provides pluses that are cumulative with no trade-offs elsewhere. Even if only some Asean members join, it would benefit Asean as a whole through better global economic networking, without disadvantaging neighbouring countries that are not BRICS members.

BRICS offers expanded trade and investment opportunities in new, untapped markets and preferential trading arrangements among members. Greater use of local currencies also reduces transaction costs, minimises exchange rate volatility, and strengthens the value and status of local currencies.

Membership also means access to funds from BRICS’ New Development Bank, and exchange-traded funds invested in members’ emerging economies that are among the world’s fastest growing. The potential benefits explain BRICS’ popularity among dozens of countries worldwide regardless of culture, history or politics.

For Asean countries like Malaysia, membership of BRICS and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as the world’s biggest trading bloc can mean powerful new synergies for accelerated and sustained economic growth. Every country has the responsibility to its citizens of making the most of every available development opportunity.

For the developing world, BRICS provides a means for fasttracking the route to fully developed status. For all countries in the Global South and North, it also provides coordinated efforts for fulfilling such global public goods as UN Sustainable Development Goals.

By BUNN NAGARA Bunn Nagara is director and Senior Fellow of the BRI Caucus for Asiapacific, and Honorary Fellow of the Perak Academy. The views expressed here are solely his own.

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Engagement is vital

 

Chinese Coast Guard vessels fire water cannons towards a Philippine resupply vessel Unaizah May 4 on its way to a resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea in March. — Reuters

THE South China Sea is a bustling waterway with growing freight and naval passages, combining widespread commercial and military interests.

More than 80% of world trade exceeding US$5 trillion (RM21.67 trillion) in value traverses these much-contested waters each year, fusing high economics with heated geopolitics.

Not least, the South China Sea sees a convergence of intemperate conduct by some claimant countries alongside some hard-nosed commonsensical prudence. Most claimants to these waters including Malaysia opt for the latter approach.

Brunei, China, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam are the contending claimants to part or all of the Spratlys, a group of rocks, reefs, shoals and other maritime features in the South China Sea.

Indonesia and China have rival claims to the Natuna Islands at the southern end of the sea, on the cusp of the Natuna Sea. Indonesia has renamed the area the North Natuna Sea, but whether that helps solidify its stake is unclear.

Among Malaysia’s claims are Luconia Shoals, at the mid-point between Sarawak’s shore and the fullest extent of Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) 200 nautical miles from shore.

On August 29, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper reported that China had sent a diplomatic note to the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing protesting Malaysia’s oil exploration activities at Luconia Shoals.

Such official notes between governments are nothing new, but always confidential or classified. How it leaked for the Inquirer to expose it to the world should be investigated, and Malaysia is doing that.

Context can help explain the newspaper’s motivation. Among all the claimant parties, the Philippines backed by its US ally’s military forces is the most assertive in trying to face down China on the high seas.

Until the first half of this year, Vietnam seemed to be an informal partner of the Philippines in confronting China over its claims. Then after an abrupt change of President and a Deputy Prime Minister, Vietnam warmed to China again and the Philippines was left without an Asean partner.

Exploiting the release of China’s diplomatic note could provoke Malaysia, or some Malaysians, to seek a tougher line with Beijing.

The news report described China’s mild note to Malaysia as a “warning”, just when China and Malaysia are on the best of terms marking the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic relations this year.

Rival claims between China, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines are more conflated with one another than with Malaysia’s and Brunei’s limited claims further south. Philippine claims may be more troubling for Malaysia because of its on-off claims to Sabah and the implications on maritime territory off Borneo’s north coast.

On Dec 12, 2019, Malaysia filed its claim to an extended continental shelf with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf off northern Sabah. Both China and the Philippines were upset, but Manila displayed far more drama.

Beijing sent a delegation to Kuala Lumpur to seek clarification. In an unofficial capacity, I explained that Malaysia’s act was consistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), which China and Malaysia had signed and ratified.

The delegation asked follow-up questions, took notes, and left without any complaint, argument or “warning”. The Philippines was particularly stung because Malaysia’s move undermined its claim to the entire Kalayaan Island Group between northern Sabah and southern Mindanao, and to Sabah itself, both of which Malaysia rejects.

The Marcos Jr government is not pressing Manila’s claim to Sabah, relegating it to a “private matter” among Sulu claimants. However, as long as their illegitimate claim to Sabah is not fully revoked and annulled, Philippine-Malaysia relations will remain constrained and their rival claims in the South China Sea will stay complicated.

Manila’s confrontational approach towards China is unlikely to gain traction from other Asean nations favouring pragmatism on at least five key issues.

First, the South China Sea disputes should see a conclusive resolution sooner or later, but preferably sooner rather than later.

Second, that resolution must be political and diplomatic, not military. There can be no military “solution” of any kind, so posturing on the high seas makes any resolution harder or impossible to achieve.

Third, naval brinkmanship begets naval brinkmanship. Residual goodwill, if any, disappears while the prospect of a peaceful settlement diminishes.

Fourth, avoiding force and confrontation in seeking a solution does not mean abandoning the search for solutions. Instead it reflects a thoughtful maturity enabling real solutions to be reached jointly, fully consistent with Asean’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation that claimant parties already accept.

Fifth, talking to another claimant is to engage the other party in meaningful discussion. It does not imply accepting the other party’s rival claims unconditionally.

China’s nine-dash line in the South China Sea began as an 11-dash line of a 1947 official map by the Nationalist Government under Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang Party. It lost the 1949 civil war and escaped to Taiwan, whose 11-dash line today still claims virtually all the South China Sea.

In 1952 Vietnam negotiated with China to remove two of the 11 dashes close to its coast. Later Taiwan’s provocations resulted in Beijing declaring a 10th-dash line off the island’s east coast but not in the South China Sea.

China’s nine-dash line claim covers such features as banks, cays, reefs and shoals in the area but not the international waters between them. Two important lessons from these developments are clear.

One, peaceful negotiations can result in a revision of the precise scope of China’s maritime claims. The Taiwan Strait and Taiwan, which claims more of the South China Sea than China, are “more core” to Beijing than the legacy claims of lines whose exact coordinates Chinese cartographers themselves are uncertain about.

Two, confrontations are much more likely to worsen the situation. In the headlong rush into military posturing threatening a war with no winners, the choice of which is the better, saner approach is obvious enough.

 Bunn Nagara is BRI director and senior fellow as well as Perak Academy honorary fellow. The views expressed here are solely his own.

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Xiangshan Forum Concludes After 3 Days of In-Depth Discussions

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  China calls for pooling strength for peace at Beijing Xiangshan Forum

  The 11th Beijing Xiangshan Forum entered its second day on Friday with an official opening ceremony highlighted by a congratulatory letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping and a keynote speech by Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun, as the keyword “peace” became the dominant theme of the event.

  By Liu Xuanzun, Wang Qi and Li Aixin | 2024/9/14 1:04:32
• Philippine ship retreats from Xianbin Jiao after 5 months of illegal anchoring, highlighting China's restraint and effective control: experts
  
  

  a

• Philippine ship's withdrawal from Xianbin Jiao shows China properly managed the situation, but vigilance toward future provocations necessary: experts
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  China's top security and defense forum, the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, kicked off on Thursday with a series of high-end interviews on topics such as the Global Security Initiative, the Global South, the security in the Asia-Pacific and the China-US relations, as a record-breaking number of participants from more than 100 countries and international organizations gathered in Beijing under the theme of the event, "Promoting Peace for a Shared Future."

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#Opinion: It is a good thing that the Philippines has withdrawn the ship from China’s Xianbin Jiao, and other provocations will not work. The Philippine side should take this withdrawal as a beginning of changing its South China Sea policy and shift focus onto developing pragmatic relations with China. https://globaltimes.cn/page/202409/1319855.shtml…