Will Southeast Asia dance to US tune?

Asia

The backing of ASEAN will serve as a morale booster to US efforts to isolate Russia and checkmate China

With the second special ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)-US meeting due to be held in a fortnight, the US administration aims to kill two birds — China and Russia — with one stone during the Ukraine crisis.

The backing of Southeast Asia — with a population of 656 million people that is bigger than Europe and which China considers its backyard — will serve as a morale booster to US efforts to isolate Russia from the global trading network and checkmate China as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy.

This time around, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will walk that extra mile at the in-person meeting with ASEAN leaders in Washington on May 12-13. They are expected to use the opportunity to market re-engagement with the US as a bulwark against China’s territorial expansionism and Russia’s imperial aspirations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

But due to the diversity, coaxing the disparate group into alignment with the US Indo-Pacific policy objectives, which aim at containing China, is a tough task to be achieved in a two-day summit unless the US woos these Asian neighbors of China with mega financial aid packages and mighty security deals.

The US Indo-Pacific Policy purportedly puts a focus on strengthening the rule of law, democratic institutions and accountable governance. Its central aim is “sustained and creative collaboration with allies, partners and institutions, within the region and beyond it,” according to the official White House website.

But dictatorial regimes call the shots in Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar and some of them enjoy cordial ties with undemocratic China.

Cambodian leader Hun Sen, who has manipulated every election since 1993, has been largely successful in eliminating his political opponents and independent media

Vietnam, a one-party authoritarian nation, does not hold elections and has imprisoned hundreds of critics of the communist regime.

Laos is another one-party state. Brunei has an absolute monarch and Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has been exercising exclusive authority since 1967. The country has no elections, free media or meaningful human rights norms.

Cambodian leader Hun Sen, who has manipulated every election since 1993, has been largely successful in eliminating his political opponents and independent media. Thailand’s military-allied government is hardly a beacon of democracy.

Most of them find China a reliable partner to trade with and enjoy good relations. Beijing has increased its presence in the region through its big ticket Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that runs through neighboring nations. In the Philippines, an ASEAN member, China is building key infrastructure projects and has given Covidd-19 vaccine assistance.

China improved its regional economic dominance at the cost of the US and its bilateral trade with Southeast Asia reached US$685 billion in 2020, almost double the US-ASEAN trade of US$362 billion in the same period.

Though Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines face unresolved maritime delimitation claims among themselves, some of Beijing’s neighbors are not happy with Chinese expansionism.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks on April 3 with Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin amid the increasing tension between the two countries over the territorial dispute in the South China Sea. The current standoff involves Beijing’s alleged intrusion into Manila’s exclusive economic zone.

With Indonesia, China has locked horns over competing sovereignty claims over the oil-rich Natuna Islands region.

This is the second special summit with Southeast Asian leaders hosted by the US president on domestic soil. Barack Obama did it for ASEAN leaders in February 2016 in California. The US is looking forward to the summit helping it to become a comprehensive strategic partner of ASEAN nations.

Given the importance of their bilateral ties, ASEAN members are quite concerned that they will be sucked into the Ukraine conflict’s orbit and fear the negative impact on the post-Covid-19 economic recovery 

The top economic subjects at the summit includes Covid-19 recovery, global health security, climate change, human capital development, maritime cooperation, connectivity and people-to-people ties.

Connectivity is of vital importance to Thailand as it plans to become the regional hub of connectivity under a 20-year national strategic plan. In fact, not all ASEAN leaders are trooping into the White House party celebrating 45 years of US ties to the faraway region.

Fresh from the one-year-old coup, Myanmar’s junta chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing is unwelcome. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is busy as he is getting ready to leave office in June and the country is facing polls.

The two-day ASEAN-US meeting falls just three days after May 9 elections in the Philippines. Moreover, Duterte has not visited the US during his six-year tenure. Cambodia has officially confirmed that Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose government faced US sanctions for alleged undemocratic activities, will attend the summit. Cambodia currently holds the rotating chair of the 10-nation bloc.

Given the importance of their bilateral ties, ASEAN members are quite concerned that they will be sucked into the Ukraine conflict’s orbit and fear the negative impact on the post-Covid-19 economic recovery of their economies.

The US, EU and NATO have imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. In a move to cripple Russia’s ability to trade with most of the world, they have excluded Russia from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), the discreet machinery of international finance.

Russian banks are being kept outside SWIFT, which has more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries as its members, making it the backbone of the international financial transfer system. Russia is banking on an alternative transfer system.

Though the upcoming ASEAN summit stands in jarring juxtaposition to last year’s Summit for Democracy and the US administration’s rhetoric on human rights and democracy, the US is trying to score some points with Southeast Asia during the Ukraine crisis.

* The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.

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