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SEAN member states must step out of their comfort zones and steer regional cooperation in a clear direction, experts told a seminar on Thursday.

Such a clear direction, they say, would allow the wider region to weather the uncertainty caused by the rise of China and the perceived waning of American influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

During a seminar to commemorate the 80th birthday of Jusuf Wanandi, one of Southeast Asia’s influential foreign policy thinkers, former top Indonesian diplomat Hassan Wirajuda raised the need for ASEAN member countries to consolidate their decision-making together.

Hassan insisted that ASEAN unity was a key requirement if the bloc wants to step up to the plate and hold the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific amidst the power shift involving China and the United States.

“It is a matter of priority that ASEAN has to again look at this question of unity, consolidate its side and develop a strong and cohesive ASEAN,” he said.

“Otherwise, don’t expect [it to be] in the driver’s seat of more regional cooperation in East Asia.”

Thursday’s discussion built on the premise that countries in the Asia-Pacific region have to decide how to act in a regional order that experts like Australian National University’s Hugh White says would see an absence of the US and the rise of a more assertive China.

White, a professor of strategic studies and a past co-drafter of Australia’s foreign policy white papers, said he believed ASEAN was far too diverse to take on the task of dealing with a rising China.

Hassan, on the other hand, said he believes in ASEAN’s role as a bridge builder.

“That’s why various dialogue mechanisms were developed,” he said, citing the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) as an example for settling issues like unresolved border disputes.

The former foreign minister revealed that the APSC, a mechanism proposed by Indonesia in 2002, was meant to allow the bloc to “take our problems, advocate a new approach and take the bull by the horns.”

However, the reality on the ground currently points to a different dynamic. In private discussions, various diplomats said ASEAN countries have been criticized for taking a passive and “business as usual” approach to dealing with regional issues and it takes countries like Indonesia to push the bloc forward to enact change.

Singapore Ambassador-at-large Ong Keng Yong, who led ASEAN as secretary-general between 2003 and 2007, argued that the bloc needed to “go beyond the general situation of peace” and actually use the mechanisms that it has in dealing with different issues.

As an example, Ong said that the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) has a clause on dispute settlement that has never been invoked “because ASEAN member states are afraid of [establishing] a precedent.”

He said the clause of the TAC High Council would be useful in resolving the Rakhine crisis in Myanmar, which has massive regional repercussions despite arguably being a domestic problem.

The TAC is a document ASEAN’s dialogue partners are required to accede to in order for them to interact with the regional bloc.

“So maybe [Indonesia] can try to encourage our ASEAN member states to use the existing mechanisms,” Ong told the seminar.

Proposing another approach, White suggested the region’s players should band together to think of “new models for a new region,” one that would be less formal but more substantive.

“In this new diffused model, Indonesia is going to have to play an exceptional role,” he said.

Meanwhile, Zhu Feng of Nanjing University tried to pacify concerns about an assertive China, saying that Beijing was still in transition and that it required “sufficient balancing power” for it to sustain its meteoric rise as a regional power in the Asia-Pacific.