The Global Dimension of ASEAN’s Policy: Past and Present

  On August 8, 2021, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) celebrated its 54-year anniversary. This coincided with a series of events held by the association, including multilateral discussions with its dialogue partners. During those discussions, the idea that the associated should increase it influence at the global level, by means of concerted efforts to combat cybersecurity threats or to encourage the global economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, was repeatedly emphasized [1]. 
  ASEAN’s interest in increasing its influence on the global economy, politics and security is not new.  Although the Association has developed its global vision relatively recently, the association has traditionally traced global processes very carefully and tried to use them to its best advantage. The ASEAN founding fathers were free from illusions: the establishment of ASEAN was a direct consequence of decolonization. The Declaration on ZOPFAN signed in 1971 addressed its main message to the global actors – the US, the USSR and the PRC. In the 1970s, the ASEAN-EU Dialogue Partnership – a trans-regional initiative with an inherent global component – was launched. In the 1980s, the association was regarded as an equal partner by China and the US, as well as cooperated with the UN, in settling the Cambodian issue.
  After the Cold War, the global dimension of ASEAN’s policy strengthened. The establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), in which international actors far beyond the Asia-Pacific region participated, substantiates this point. Assuming the authority to set the ARF’s agenda, the association gained considerable political advantage. The issues discussed at the ARF were not limited to Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania, which suggested ASEAN’s readiness to make its contribution to the global security. Later on, this practice was extended to the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus Eight (ADMM+8). 
  Nevertheless, before the early 2010s, ASEAN’s global policy was reactive rather than proactive. In spite of its global strategic vision, the association remained a regional actor with regional ambitions and possibilities. Even the ASEAN Community was born out of necessity to respond to regional rather than global developments, mostly by the 1997-1998 Asian financial and economic crisis, the East Timor issue and the pro-Chinese terms of the Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. The global dimension of ASEAN’s policy, although inherently present, was not strongly pronounced. 
  Due to numerous reasons, in the early-mid 2010s it increased its relevance to the association. First, both regional and global instruments to maintain a hold upon the South China Sea issue turned out to be ineffective. The 2016 PCA decision and the immediate response from China convincingly demonstrated it.  
  Second, the American and the Chinese mega-projects (the Indo-Pacific Region and the Belt and Road Initiative respectively) are seriously detrimental to the association. Both may weaken ASEAN’s positions as the “driving force” of the Asia-Pacific multilateral venues – the ARF, the ADMM+8 and the EAS. The negative multiplier effect extends to the ASEAN-led multilateral economic initiatives, specifically, the recently signed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Third, at the ideational level, the Southeast Asian policy-makers are clearly disappointed at liberal democracy as a form of political governance. The color revolutions, the on-going economic and technological wars, the prolonged internal crises (among other examples, the political disturbances in the US in 2020 and the early 2021 are especially noteworthy), the collapse of healthcare systems in the European countries and the US are cases in point. This is incompatible with the values on which the ASEAN member states used to premise their modernization strategies, as well as with the ASEAN principles.  
  To cushion Southeast Asia against negative impacts of globalization, the association develops the ASEAN Community [2] project. The ASEAN Economic Community is supposed to make Southeast Asia a unified production and commercial area underpinned by various forms of technological cooperation within ASEAN and between ASEAN and its dialogue partners as a major precondition for integrating Southeast Asia into the global economic system. The ASEAN Political-Security Community aims to develop a seamless approach to the regional security challenges, while the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community focuses upon forging common identity of the Southeast Asian nations. To date, the obtained results are not impressive. This is exemplified by each pillar of the ASEAN Community. 
  Developing the project ASEAN Economic Community, ASEAN’s decision-makers have to accept objective reality: Southeast Asia is not and in the short-term and the mid-term perspective is unlikely to become a single production base. To date, the association been unable to organize the “made in ASEAN” production networks of, for instance, the ASEAN automobile or the ASEAN smartphone, based on the supply-production chains embracing enterprises from several, or, ideally, from the majority of, ASEAN member states. On the contrary, the ASEAN external partners have traditionally been behind the ASEAN-led multilateral initiatives. Without extending on the role of Japan-led supply-production chains as the industrial foundation of ASEAN’s multilateral initiatives of the 1990s and beyond, suffice it to make a crucial AEC-relevant point. Tellingly, before the launch of the ASEAN Community, the threatening prospects for ASEAN to slip into irrelevance after ASEAN and China signed the CAFTA, were very real. This incentivized the association to develop the ASEAN Economic Community stronger than any other factor. 
  Arguably, none of pillars of the AEC-2015 [3] has been brought to fruition. As mentioned above, a single production base in Southeast Asia is missing. The same is true with regard to a competitive economic region: the ASEAN Way is not an appropriate instrument for realizing trans-national multilateral projects that are the key prerequisites for Southeast Asia’s rise in competitiveness. For the ASEAN member states, an equitable economic development is also problematic, mostly due to huge infrastructure gaps (although, to ASEAN’s credit, its efforts to address this problem have been underway for quite a long time). Without the assets mentioned above, Southeast Asia’s integration into the global economy has been and will remain in China’s shadow, especially as Beijing’s attempts to synergize the BRI and the ASEAN-led RCEP come to fruition. Presumably, ASEAN’s journey to the AEC-2025 [4] will also encounter serious setbacks. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the association apparently lacked sufficient resources to carry out that project. Since the pandemic started, ASEAN’s resources have drastically decreased. 
  Problems with the ASEAN Political-Security Community are also serious. As already mentioned, the ASEAN-led multilateral venues may lose their relevance in the priorities of their participants, as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Indo-Pacific Region gain traction. Predictably, the BRI and the IPR will stir up the South China Sea issue, to ASEAN’s disadvantage.  
  Finally, the establishment of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community has become more complicated. ASEAN’s efforts to create a common identity of Southeast Asian nations are undermined by the COVID-19 pandemic with no clear end in sight, which decreased the intensity of people-to-people contacts. To ASEAN’s credit, its response to the pandemic has been timely and effective. Nevertheless, it is not enough to encourage intra-ASEAN people-to-people contacts at the grass-root level, which is necessary for strengthening the ASEAN identity. 
  Regrettably, ASEAN cannot afford to “turn inside” and focus on its internal tasks in order to strengthen its resilience as the main resource for realizing its aspirations to stronger global influence. In fact, the association has to respond to a big challenge that did not exist during and after the Cold War. In those times, Southeast Asia was not an area of contradictions between the global actors that simultaneously were ASEAN’s key partners – China and the US. At present, however, Southeast Asia is in the epicenter of Sino-American rivalry. Seen from the practical perspective, the implications for ASEAN are negative. In the 1980s, dealing with the Cambodia issue, the association was able to develop relations with Washington and Beijing as their equal rather than secondary partner. In the 2010s and the early 2020s, for ASEAN it is unaffordable luxury. This has profound significance since that equality was behind the effective solution of the Cambodian issue, which has been the most impressive ASEAN’s diplomatic victory in its history. At present, the association finds itself sandwiched between the US and China, but tries to strengthen its global rather than regional positions. Needless to say that this task is extraordinarily difficult. 
  To conclude, ASEAN is facing new challenges. An appropriate response requires both political insight and diplomatic skills. Based on the evidence thus far, ASEAN has repeatedly demonstrates these assets throughout its history. Let us wait and see what it has to show this time. 

[1] Chairman’s Statement of the 28th ASEAN Regional Forum. 6 August 2021 via videoconference; Chairman’s Statement of the 11th East Asia Summit (EAS) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. 4 August 2021 via videoconference. 

[2] It consists of the ASEAN Economic Community, the ASEAN Political-Security Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. URL: // https://asean.org/ 

[3] They are: a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development and a region fully integrated into the global economy. See: A Blueprint for Growth. ASEAN Economic Community 2015. Progress and Key Achievements. Jakarta: the ASEAN Secretariat, 2015. P. 5.

[4] They components of the AEC-2025 are: a highly integrated and cohesive regional community, a competitive innovative and dynamic community, enhanced connectivity and sectoral cooperation, a resilient, inclusive, people-oriented and people-centred community, a global ASEAN. ASEAN Community Vision 2025. P. 15-16.