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ASEAN needs bigger voice in US-China rivalry
As the United States-China relationship has morphed from uneasy cooperation to uneasy rivalry, ASEAN member states, like many countries, have had to recalibrate their relationships with the two great world powers. But ASEAN itself has been largely absent from the discussion, risking regional division and global irrelevance at exactly the time when it most needs to develop a united front.
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This combination of file pictures created on April 4, 2017 shows US President Donald Trump in St. Louis, Missouri on October 9, 2016 and China's leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on December 5, 2012. (AFP/Ed Jones, Paul J. Richards)
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s the United States-China relationship has morphed from uneasy cooperation to uneasy rivalry, ASEAN member states, like many countries, have had to recalibrate their relationships with the two great world powers.
But ASEAN itself has been largely absent from the discussion, risking regional division and global irrelevance at exactly the time when it most needs to develop a united front.
The East Asia Summit (EAS), held in Bangkok on Monday, was an opportunity for ASEAN to go beyond its EAS convening role to a more forward-leaning posture in shaping and influencing its own geopolitical fate.
The fact that both China and the US view Southeast Asia as a key arena for influence gives ASEAN some degree of leverage. Most observers don’t expect ASEAN to use it, however, which would be a missed opportunity.
Unless ASEAN’s larger member states take an active role in strengthening and articulating a cohesive ASEAN view on issues affecting its member states, the US-China rivalry could end up polarizing the regional grouping and rendering the cherished notion of “ASEAN centrality” a mere slogan.
This need not be the case. Precisely because Southeast Asia is seen as important to both China and the US, and because neither of the global powers sees it in their interest to weaken ASEAN as a coherent regional grouping, ASEAN has some latitude in carving out its own stance on issues ranging from maritime security to infrastructure project governance.
But ASEAN’s largest member states — especially Indonesia — will need to invest more leadership time and political capital to craft common ground.
