NE Asia summit shows SE Asia weaknesses

NE Asia summit shows SE Asia weaknesses

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak speaks during the opening ceremony of the 26th Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur last April. (Reuters photo, Bangkok Post graphics)
Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak speaks during the opening ceremony of the 26th Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur last April. (Reuters photo, Bangkok Post graphics)

Although it papered over differences, the recent resumption of a summit meeting among China, Japan and South Korea has cooled bilateral tensions in Northeast Asia with longer-term implications for Southeast Asia.

After a three-year hiatus, the "trilateral talks" in Seoul now offer hope that major regional disputes can be brokered by the main Northeast Asian protagonists. As a result, Southeast Asia's platform through Asean's framework and mechanisms to mitigate conflict and build regional security architecture has been left to play second fiddle.

Unless Asean gets its act together, especially in the remainder of this year ahead of its Asean Community launch, the 10-member grouping risks muddling into irrelevance and losing more significance.

The Trilateral Summit this time had limited success in substantive terms. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye pledged to further deepen economic ties and complete a trilateral free-trade deal, which has become more pressing now that Japan has joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership without China and South Korea. On the security front, North Korea featured prominently, and all three leaders agreed to work towards denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula through renewed Six Party Talks.

Territorial disputes between Japan and China on one hand and Japan and South Korea on the other were swept under the carpet for the time being. China and South Korea also did not press Mr Abe for Japan to confront its wartime atrocities. A consequential outcome for Asean from the Seoul summit was Tokyo's and Seoul's discussion of the South China Sea without Beijing's participation. That Northeast Asia's trilateral summit is now rebooted with more top-level talks to come puts pressure on Asean to boost its own role in resolving regional disputes and bolstering economic development.

However, Asean appears stuck in most directions. Its recent haze crisis is indicative. The haze choked inhabitants of Malaysia, Singapore and southern Thailand from manmade scorched-forest practices to make way for oil palm plantations on Indonesia's Sumatra island.

The haze challenge has been an annual occurrence, symptomatic of Asean's institutional weakness at a time when it needs its cohesion the most. As in past years, Singaporean complaints have elicited Indonesia's retort and criticism of Singapore's so-called nanny, pampered society. A senior Indonesian figure suggested the Singapore was already lucky to have as many months of no haze as it does.

Unsurprisingly, Asean's Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution from 2002 was no help. The haze situation has improved and normalcy is returning, but only because nature has relented with favourable winds and subsiding slash-and-burn practices from the Indonesian side.

As Asean becomes embattled from intramural tensions, domestic political volatility, lacklustre leadership, and overshadowing great-power rivalry, its role as Asia's intermediary and institutional bridge for regional peace and stability is increasingly compromised. Asean's inward focus and internal stresses have made Northeast Asia look good with its trilateral summit. At this rate, if Northeast Asia can get its act together while Asean succumbs to divergent agendas, inertia and fragmentation, the trilateral summit could lead the way in managing tensions and regional disputes.

Moreover, the much-vaunted Asean Community, with a tripod focus on political and security, economic and socio-cultural, glows on paper and in rhetoric more than it registers and impacts on the ground.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before a trilateral summit at the Presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea. (Reuters photo)

Malaysia, its country chair this year, is hobbled by visceral domestic political polarisation and salacious corruption allegations involving Prime Minister Najib Razak whose power clique and crony interests are at odds with those of Mahathir Mohamad, one of his predecessors. Asean is an outlet for Mr Najib to display statesmanship for local gains but the beleaguered Mr Najib lacks focus and resolve to propel Asean forward in a pivotal year.

Asean's leadership shortcomings are compounded by its secretary-general's bureaucratic blandness, a stark contrast to the charisma and pulling power of Surin Pitsuwan, the previous Asean global spokesperson and general marketer. As capacity-stretched Laos takes rotational charge next year, Asean's doldrums are unlikely to be remedied in the near term.

As for Indonesia, when President Joko Widodo occasionally casts his attention abroad from domestic priorities, Jakarta appears unsatisfied with its traditional leadership of Asean, seeking to use other platforms such as the G-20 to project and pursue its role and interest. Thailand, under a military government ahead of a once-in-a-lifetime political transition, is navel-gazing in a holding pattern. While Myanmar's elections on Sunday have produced a clear winner in Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and a concession of defeat from the military, a workable government that can keep pro-democracy forces satisfied, the generals secure enough from staging another coup, and the ethnic minorities feeling inclusive are still some distance away. Brunei is too small to be significant, and Singapore too affluent and smart to be bogged down with Asean's constraints.

Asean's various challenges have been around for some time, and the organisation has weathered rough waters before, including a region-wide financial crisis in the late 1990s, internal ethno-nationalist insurgencies and jihadist terrorism, apart from the haze. But Asean's intramural friction, domestic introspection and inert leadership come with poor timing. From conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea and regional community ambition to great-power relations, Asean's role has never seem so instrumental and imperative. Yet the organisation is just not there.

This is a pity because Asia's time has come but it is being squandered through the destructive logic of security dilemmas in Northeast Asia's bilateral territorial conflicts and Japan's wartime baggage and in similar sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea. It is supposed to be the epicentre of action yet Asia is rife with tension and conflict from continent to the seas and across the landmass.

If Asean proves unable to be an effective stage for strategic dialogue and understanding to prevent and mitigate Asia's conflicts, Asia's future ironically must rely more on the sort of trilateral summit in Seoul. Unless its key member states can come together at least to reduce tension and open avenues for discussion based on mutual interest, Asia's supposed preeminence over the coming decades will be much less than anticipated.


Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak

Senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University

A professor and senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science, he earned a PhD from the London School of Economics with a top dissertation prize in 2002. Recognised for excellence in opinion writing from Society of Publishers in Asia, his views and articles have been published widely by local and international media.

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