“We hope … to showcase a new open and confident image of the [People’s Liberation Army] Navy,” Chinese officer Lei Xiao said during recently concluded major multinational naval drills in Indonesia. For its part, the PLA Daily – the news outlet for the People’s Liberation Army – described the Komodo multilateral naval exercise off South Sulawesi as a crucial step to “further deepen mutual understanding and practical cooperation” among regional states.
As many as 40 warships from three dozen nations across the Indo-Pacific took part in the high-profile drills in Indonesian waters. What made this year’s exercises particularly important was the joint participation of both US and Chinese naval forces, underscoring the growing centrality of Southeast Asia to regional geopolitics.
This is crucial in light of the virtual breakdown of military-to-military diplomacy between the superpowers, whose armed forces have been involved in several near misses in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait in the past month alone. Defence chiefs from the US and China failed to hold direct talks at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, where both sides blamed each other for the deteriorating regional security architecture.
Concerned by the troubling turn of events, Indonesia, this year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), is once again at the centre of efforts to mediate US-China relations. Southeast Asian nations have also welcomed a goodwill visit by a PLA Navy contingent to de-escalate maritime tensions in the South China Sea.
Indonesia is pushing for greater unity in Asean as well. Accordingly, it is organising the first naval drills among regional states later this year to assert Asean centrality in the Indo-Pacific. Despite its good intentions and growing strategic influence, a Jakarta-led Asean must overcome deep internal divisions to effectively mediate long-term detente between the US and China.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo (centre) speaks during a press conference at the 42nd Asean Summit in Labuan Bajo, Indonesia, on May 11. Photo: Xinhua
Asean nations have showcased their diplomatic muscle, such as when they played a central role in bringing Washington and Beijing together last year following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Meanwhile, Singapore has warned the two nations against sleepwalking into conflict, emphasising the unintended consequences of tit-for-tat sanctions and aggressive rhetoric.
Soon after, on November 14, US President Joe Biden met President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia. During their meeting, the two vowed to more proactively manage their strategic competition and signalled their shared commitment to “work together to address transnational challenges”. But the Asean-mediated detente quickly fell apart, especially following the Chinese “spy balloon” incident earlier this year.
The current Chinese defence chief, Li Shangfu, is on the US sanctions list, complicating efforts at direct diplomacy. Worse, the two sides almost came to blows in recent weeks, with both sides blaming each other following close calls between their aircraft over the South China Sea and, a week later, between their warships in the Taiwan Strait.
Eager to prevent a hot war, Indonesia has proposed cooperative activities – including joint patrols and drills – both with the US and China, and among Asean nations – to enhance defence diplomacy and lower regional tensions. There are, however, three major challenges for effective Asean defence diplomacy.
To begin with, the grouping is hampered by a dysfunctional decision-making process which emphasises consensus over effective leadership. By naively insisting on unanimity on sensitive geopolitical issues, it has consistently failed to organise a collective response to major crises in its own backyard. In the past, Asean’s founders mobilised decisive responses to crises, even at the height of the Cold War, through minilateral cooperation rather than insisting on a consensus.
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Indonesian president calls for ‘more unity’ to resolve Myanmar crisis
Indonesian president calls for ‘more unity’ to resolve Myanmar crisis
Moreover, Asean nations have divergent threat perceptions and strategies. On one hand, Southeast Asian maritime states are more directly affected by rising tensions in the region. Some, notably Indonesia and Singapore, also see themselves as active stakeholders in shaping regional security, while the Philippines and Malaysia are active claimant states in the South China Sea.
Most continental Southeast Asian nations are not only more insulated from the maritime disputes but are also more dependent on investment and aid from China. This largely explains why Cambodia has defied Asean’s founding members on regional maritime security issues by halting proposed joint drilling plans with Indonesia near the South China Sea.
In 2012, Cambodia even tried to block the discussion of maritime disputes in what was seen as deference to Beijing. The upshot is the inherent inability of Asean to forge an optimal consensus on regional geopolitical issues.
This brings us to the toughest challenge for the group: the ugly divisions within its ranks. On one hand, the Philippines has doubled down on its defence ties with the West, recently holding its first quadrilateral security meeting with the US, Australia and Japan to discuss potential joint patrols in the South China Sea later this year.
This month also saw the Philippines hold its first joint coastguard drills with the US and Japan. As a result, there are concerns that Manila could act more as an extension of the West rather than a responsible Asean member.
In contrast, Cambodia seems to be moving in the opposite direction, with reports suggesting it might be the first to host a Chinese naval base in the region. In response, some regional thought leaders have called for Cambodia to be expelled from Asean because of its overdependence on Beijing. In short, Asean must get its own house in order if it seeks to effectively mediate between the US and China.
Richard Heydarian is a Manila-based academic and author of “Asia’s New Battlefield: US, China and the Struggle for Western Pacific”, and the forthcoming “Duterte’s Rise”
