Asean rubs wounds with China

Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:04 Kavi Chongkittavorn

(Commentary) – Until recently, the Philippines maintained a fairly benign defence strategy in relation to its claims in the South China Sea. Domestic turmoil, economic problems and southern rebellions kept the country too preoccupied to fully deal with this key security issue.

However, since July 2010, the government under President Benigno Aquino III has displayed an assertive foreign policy posture in relations with the US and China, which are themselves moving in opposite directions on this issue.

At last week’s Asean summit in Phnom Penh, the Philippines unmistakably emerged as the most critical and loudest voice against China over the maritime territorial disputes. Even the strong territorial claims held by Vietnam, which has fought many wars during thousands of years of adversarial relations with China, looked pale by comparison.

Manila’s newfound confidence harks back to the Cold War, when the country was the centre of regional power with a substantial and active US presence at Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Base. Obviously, the former US colony is trying to play the role of “game changer extraordinaire” within Asean amid a fast-changing regional landscape.

With such determination from a founding member, the latest round of discussions among Asean members over this sensitive topic was no longer business as usual. Their positions on China are more difficult to manage than ever before. That has been the trend since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared in July 2010 that it was in the US national interest to see a peaceful settlement of the disputes. Soon after, Asean and China reached a consensus in Bali over the guidelines of a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (2002) after exactly a decade of negotiations.

Building on this progress, Asean senior officials have met four times to discuss “possible elements” of a code of conduct (COC) since last November. “Possible elements” was used instead of “terms of reference” after China objected.

Asean hopes to finalize these by a July ministerial meeting, before discussing them with China. In recent months, an anxious Beijing has sent a strong signal requesting joint deliberations on the code, but Asean was mute. At the summit, the Philippines and Vietnam objected strongly to having China taking part at this juncture. As such, it is doubtful whether Asean and China can actually agree, let alone sign, a COC before the next Asean Summit planned for mid-November under the Cambodian chair.

In the Chinese media, “the rule of conduct” has already become a preferred term used to refer to the code. In its draft, Asean has linked key COC elements with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, among others. The Philippines has already proposed setting up a joint cooperation area on the Spratlys including a joint permanent working group that would operationalize activities in the disputed areas. But there has been no consensus within Asean.

At the Phnom Penh summit, China surprised Asean with a proposal to establish an eminent persons and experts group (Epeg) to discuss the code. The Epeg would be made up of 10 members, five each from China and Asean, which would include the Jakarta-based secretariat. Asean will almost certainly turn down this proposal, as China failed to consult it beforehand. Further, it is a track-two discussion, while the grouping wants to concentrate on official mechanisms first before going further. The proposal is also deemed divisive as it discriminates against the other half of Asean.

In more ways than one, China and Asean now realise that frequent debates without an acceptable and workable framework for peaceful settlement and joint cooperation will only further complicate the issue and hold their longstanding mutual trust hostage. Worse still, it could invite further involvement from outside players and dispute-settlement mechanisms.

Presently, Asean positions and views on the disputes are quite diverse, comprising moderate and hard-line positions among claimants and non-claimants. These differences surfaced after so-called “Aseanization” efforts begun in 1992 abruptly shifted to an open-ended internationalized process in 2010 during Vietnam’s chair. The possibility of returning to a mainstream Asean-China process – if it exists at all – would now depend on the group’s ability to speak with one voice and China’s willingness to engage Asean as a group.

Unlike the Philippines’ confrontational prepositioning, another prominent claimant, Vietnam, was more subdued in Cambodia, its close ally for decades. As if to compensate for the conspicuous absence of comment this time, Hanoi took the opportunity to introduce to Asean leaders the next Asean secretary-general, Vietnamese Vice Foreign Minister Le Luong Minh, even though the current Asean chief, Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, still has nine months to go. The veteran diplomat served as his country’s permanent representative to the UN before taking up the current position. He will succeed Surin, who was openly recruited in Thailand, on January 1, 2013, and serve a five-year term.

As the Asean chair, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wanted last week’s summit to highlight the success of the 45-year-old organisation in integrating all countries in Southeast Asia as well as his leadership in the grouping. That explained why Hun Sen pushed to issue the Phnom Penh Declaration on Asean and his statement on the 45th anniversary of Asean, with contents taken in part and in whole from roadmaps for the Asean Community, without which the summit could easily have been overwhelmed by the various euphemistic responses to the outcomes of the April 1 by-elections in Myanmar.

At first, the response to the poll outcome, which was applauded by Asean and the international community, along with calls for ending sanctions, was supposed to be issued as a separate statement to highlight Myanmar’s good news, but later it was just included in the chairman’s statement.

Besides the chair’s agenda, the Phnom Penh summit also offered a glimpse of future strategic competition in the region among major powers, mainly the US and China, through their friends or foes. Despite Cambodia’s efforts to avoid taking up the South China Sea dispute, knowing its sensitivities, President Aquino and Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario decided to speak up, much to the chagrin of their colleagues.

At the press conference wrapping up the summit, Hun Sen was visibly not happy with the media focus on the perceived roles of China and Cambodia over this issue. Hun Sen knows that if this sentiment continues, it will impact on his chairmanship and Cambodia’s budding relations with China and longstanding fraternal ties with Vietnam, not to mention Asean and the region’s stability as a whole.