The Asean Region Ushers In the New Year Amid Uncertainty

In With the New: Member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations leave behind a year of aviation tragedies, political intrigue and economic concerns

Jakarta Globe, Jamil Maidan Flores, Dec 31, 2014

President Joko Widodo took the stage at the Asean and East Asia
summits in Myanmar on Nov. 13, 2014. (AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan)

Jakarta. 2014 hasn’t been a particularly great one for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region. Two airline tragedies set the region’s mood for the whole year.

Malaysia Airlines’ MH370 disappeared on March 8 and MH17 was shot down over Donetsk in Ukraine on July 17. At year’s end, the tragedies are still wrapped in mystery. A former airline executive claims it’s possible the doomed MH370 flight was shot down by US fighter planes as it approached at low altitude the American fortress in Diego Garcia. Meanwhile, Russian investigators claim to have evidence that a Ukrainian pilot shot down MH17. Who knows?

The puzzle on the fate of these two doomed aircraft mirrors the uncertainty engulfing not just the Asean region today but also the world at large.

Look at Thailand. A government that came to power via coup d’etat on May 22 now rules the kingdom. Upon assuming power, it promised general elections in October 2015. This has been rescheduled to early 2016. Thais are pinning their hopes on the government keeping its word.

Soon after the coup, then Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa urged Asean to issue a statement of concern at the situation in Thailand. No dice. But a few Asean countries did express concern.

There are enough Thais willing to give the military government every chance to legitimize itself by fixing the economy and holding early elections. But if there’s no meaningful move to return the kingdom to democracy in 2015, and if in neighboring Myanmar the Rohingya remain brutally persecuted, you can kiss goodbye to the credibility of your Asean Political-Security Community.

Now take the South China Sea. Since 2008, China has been strongly assertive about its claim to sovereignty over almost all of the area. In the process, it has lumbered into dangerous standoffs with the Philippines and Vietnam. In January last year, the Philippines filed a case against the Chinese sovereignty claim based on nine dashed lines drawn on an old map.

China snubbed a Dec. 15 deadline to reply to the Philippine memo on the case. Instead it issued a blue paper arguing that the international Tribunal established to hear the case had no jurisdiction.

Now comes Vietnam formally apprising the Tribunal of its own claims to the Paracels and Spratlys islands that might be affected by the arbitration. It supports the Tribunal’s jurisdiction over the case and refutes China’s claim based on the nine dashed lines. Thus Vietnam, while protecting its claims, has weakened the Chinese position.

Meanwhile, Asean’s efforts to speed up negotiations with China on a legally binding Code of Conduct of parties in the South China Sea has been slowed down by Chinese stonewalling. As Asean chair, Myanmar did an excellent job in every other task of the chairmanship, but even this long-time friend of China couldn’t get the negotiations firmly underway.

Accordingly the US-based Council on Foreign Relations ranks the South China Sea number six among top ten conflict prevention priorities in 2015, with an estimate of the probability of a shooting war upgraded from low to moderate.

If conflict did flare up in the South China Sea, among the first victims would be Indonesia’s newly minted maritime doctrine. At the Asean and related summits in Myanmar last November, President Joko Widodo gave notice of Indonesia’s intention to become the world’s maritime fulcrum. As it straddles the junction between these oceans, Indonesia is indeed in the best position to preside over a network maritime trading nations.

Indonesia will therefore spend good money to refurbish its ports and other maritime infrastructures and to modernize its navy. With new hardware and new capacity, it will sternly protect its maritime territory and its exclusive economic zones. To underscore this policy, Indonesian authorities recently sank three Vietnamese boats and six boats belonging to Filipino Bajau tribesmen.

Observers cite barriers to the successful pursuit of this doctrine, such as a possible backlash from neighbors — if Indonesia doesn’t tread carefully. It will help that Asean, being a maritime region, is officially committed to boosting maritime connectivity. It will also help that China is on a charm offensive in the field of development finance, involving the Brics Bank, the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Maritime Road Initiative.

Thus we can be cautiously optimistic about Indonesia’s new maritime doctrine. And there are other positive developments: India has escalated its “Look East Policy” into an “Act East Policy,” which comes with an offer of a special purpose vehicle for project financing. India is now helping build the India-Myanmar-Thailand multi-modal transit project, which combines maritime, riverine and land transport infrastructures.

And then there’s the historic agreement between the Indonesia and the Philippines on the delineation of their exclusive economic zones. Both countries are offering that agreement as a model of how maritime boundary disputes can be settled peacefully to the satisfaction of all.

The big question about Asean, of course, is: Will it be ready to become the Asean Community by the end of 2015?

The short answer is “No.” That is why experts are saying Dec. 31, 2015 is not a true deadline. It will just be a landmark, beyond which Asean Community building will feverishly continue.

The long answer is also a “No” with an attached list of explanations. Here are two of the most often cited: first is the overblown sanctity of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of countries, which deters full commitment to long-term regional goals, in favor of short-term country objectives.

And, second, where are the instruments for dealing with non-compliance? Without these instruments, the resulting impunity undermines the grouping’s claim to being a true Community. These instruments must be devised.

In the end, the Asean Community may well see the light of day in 2020 — which was the original plan anyway, until Asean leaders got overconfident and pushed the deadline forward to 2015.

Let’s bow to reality.

Jamil Maidan Flores is a columnist for the Jakarta Globe