The case for collective leadership in ASEAN
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| Leaders of ASEAN take part in the 32nd ASEAN Summit in Singapore [Credit: Prime Minister's Office Singapore] |
Over three years have now passed since the launch of the ASEAN Community. At that time, during the curtain closure for 2015, the 10 member states of the grouping celebrated what was hoped would usher in a new dawn, in which the peoples of the region would determine their own political, economic and socio-cultural destiny.
However, few could have predicted how the region would look like just a few years later. The events that have transpired since the milestone launch date suggest that ASEAN is still some way off its ambitions to be the master of its own fate.
The ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest economic powers – the United States and China – has dragged down the economies in Southeast Asia. A recent survey by Bloomberg forecasts slowing gross domestic product growth for Indonesia (from 5.2 percent in 2018 to 5.1 percent in 2019), Malaysia (from 4.7 percent to 4.6 percent), Singapore (from 3.3 percent to 2.7 percent), Thailand (from 4.2 percent to 3.9 percent) and Vietnam (6.9 percent to 6.6 percent).
Despite initial optimism earlier in December that presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping had agreed to pause their destructive trade war following a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, it became apparent this was not the case, and ASEAN would also suffer as a result for the foreseeable future.
If there are any lessons to be learned from the US-China trade war, it is the dangers of overdependence. Yet the region’s efforts to be more self-dependent have fallen short. For example, the share of intra-ASEAN trade compared to its total trade in goods has fallen every year since at least 2013 when it stood at 24.4 percent. The following years it dipped to 24.0 percent in 2014, 23.6 percent in 2015, 23.1 percent in 2016 and most recently 22.9 percent in 2017.
ASEAN’s other effort to be more self-dependent, via the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), also fell flat. The deadline to conclude negotiations for the mega trade deal between ASEAN and six of its dialogue partners – namely Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea – was again postponed, marking the fourth time the date was pushed back.
In stark contrast, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership came into force only a year after the initiative was seen to have been killed off following the US’ withdrawal.
Whilst negotiators have suggested the RCEP may finally be agreed in 2019, crucial elections in Australia, India, Indonesia and Thailand may present obstacles if the mega trade deal becomes a thorny electoral issue, threatening to further slow efforts to realize the RCEP and consequently ASEAN’s aim of standing on its own feet, economically.
ASEAN is also at risk of being left behind in the political-security field. Much has been made of the “Indo-Pacific” with questions raised about where ASEAN would fit in the new regional architecture and whether its long-cherished ASEAN centrality would be supplanted by other regional powers and their initiatives.
One example would be the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or the Quad – comprising the US, Australia, India and Japan – which was relaunched in November 2017 and has met on three occasions, most recently on the sidelines of the 33rd ASEAN Summit in Singapore. A recent article in The National Interest magazine described the Quad as “the quintessential Indo-Pacific initiative” and providing a “glimpse of a post-ASEAN future within which ASEAN’s standing and ability to set the regional agenda and lead discussion are diminished.” The article goes on to argue that over time the Quad “are likely to become less and less sympathetic to the passive approach by ASEAN.”
That the Quad is being talked as a possible replacement for ASEAN may seem laughable, given that the former has barely existed a year since it was relaunched and its first iteration only lasted from 2007 to 2008 before falling apart. In contrast ASEAN has stood the test of time for over 50 years. Nevertheless ASEAN should do more to ensure its centrality amid competing visions being offered by regional powers over the region’s architecture.
In this sense, Jakarta’s push for ASEAN to have its own concept of the Indo-Pacific is a step in the right direction. At the recent East Asian Summit, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo shared a concept paper with ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners, calling for an Indo-Pacific based on the principles of being “open, transparent and inclusive, promoting the habit of dialogue, promoting cooperation and friendship, and upholding international law.” In contrast to the Quad countries’ seemingly anti-China visions of an Indo-Pacific architecture, Indonesia has instead invited Beijing to cooperate, with the President stating, “ASEAN considers China as a potential partner for increasing Indo-Pacific cooperation.”
The reaction to Indonesia’s push, however, appears mixed. Despite the Foreign Ministry claiming that “ASEAN countries gave their full support to the [Indonesian] concept”, it was rather telling that the Chairman’s Statement of the 13th East Asian Summit only “noted ongoing discussions within ASEAN to develop collective cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Clearly more work needs to be done, and whilst Indonesia is often regarded as the primus inter pares in ASEAN, the task of formulating the region’s own vision of the Indo-Pacific should not be Jakarta’s alone. Fellow ASEAN members should also do more and contribute their own ideas so that ASEAN may also stand on its own feet, in the political-security spheres.
Undoubtedly region is facing unparalleled challenges. The geo-political and geo-economic environment of the Indo-Pacific is ever-changing, and at remarkable speed. As such, all stakeholders that call ASEAN home must work together to ensure the region is able to face up to such challenges.
Therefore ASEAN needs collective leadership. No country is large enough to go it alone. No state is strong enough to lead on its own. However, collectively the region is larger and stronger when it works together.
Three years on since the launch of the ASEAN Community, and amid a damaging trade war and competing visions of the regional architecture, Southeast Asians need to do more to steer events to a course that benefits its people and to shape events into a form that brings peace, stability and prosperity to this region. Only through collective leadership in ASEAN can this happen.
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