Policy makers and scholars watched with keen interest the recent meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ foreign ministers in Manila. The run-up had seen the South China Sea again emerging as a geopolitical flashpoint. From May onwards, two contested areas in the region critical to the Philippines once again challenged its bilateral ties with China. The implications this had for ASEAN was of equal concern.
One was the challenge it posed in wording the joint communiqué. Such difficulty was faced even during the 2012 ASEAN summit when, for the first time, the grouping was unable to come out with a joint statement on the South China Sea. This time it was issued with some glaring omissions. The situation merits a deeper analysis, as there was hardly any effort this year to address it collectively even though the agenda of the grouping was set by the Philippines.
This year’s meeting was keenly watched also because it fell during the 10th anniversary of a Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling regarding conflicting claims in the South China Sea. Even while the meeting was taking place, Chinese presence both in the Scarborough Shoal and Batanes islands—variously claimed by the Philippines, China and Taiwan—further complicated the situation, notwithstanding the verdict.
With this in the backdrop, let’s analyse three factors. First, claims by the Philippines on Batanes islands and its interpretation by China. Second, the limits of ASEAN’s consensus-building efforts and how this has led to fractured outcomes even as the region is critically challenged by Chinese pressure. And third, why some ASEAN countries will not be able to move towards the code of conduct in the area though a framework for it is accepted by the bloc itself.
Under the Philippines’ chairmanship of the ASEAN this year, the focus on the South China Sea was more intense because of two clear factors. First, the Philippines has recently expanded its security and defence procurement in light of the Scarborough Shoal issue and claims relating to the Batanes islands. Chinese incursions at the shoal have been more frequent and intense this year. While this is addressed through international law and the PCA ruling, it has had little bearing on Chinese actions. Rather, there seems to be a vicarious effort by the Chinese to cock a snook at the region’s normative order.
The case of the Batanes has an added layer of complexity because the contestation is a trilateral issue between the Philippines, Taiwan and China. While the Philippines remains sensitive to the One China Policy, limiting its interactions with Taiwan to purely business ties, the Chinese claims to the Batanes is based on its own claims to Taiwan as well. The dilemma for the Philippines is a dual one—incursions complicate bilateral ties with China and destabilises the broader geopolitical landscape.
Second, consensus-building in ASEAN is a slow and fractured process. The foreign ministers’ meeting is a precursor to the ASEAN summit, normally held in November, prior to the chairmanship moving hands in the new year. The foreign ministers’ meeting remains a credible mechanism to indicate the trajectory of the grouping’s agenda. While there is a reference in the joint communiqué to the eventual furthering of the ASEAN Maritime Centre and the proposed finalisation of the terms of reference under which it will function, the unwillingness to insert the decade-old PCA ruling showed the limits of the consensus-building process.
While much can happen in foreign policy without clearly stating it, in multilateral mechanisms that claim to support the continued normative frameworks in the region, not stating it implicitly indicates an unwillingness to communicate clarity. The lack of consensus is hardly surprising given the intense differences within ASEAN in calling out the excesses of China in the South China Sea, but it’s nevertheless disappointing. ASEAN’s stated adherence to centrality on regional issues repeatedly gets undermined through strategic silence on critical issues.
What was expected in the communiqué and what it actually delivered in its final avatar clearly reflected the limits of ASEAN in addressing the South China Sea dispute. The grouping’s inability to articulate the position of the claimant states of the ASEAN and address any kind of normative approach, which ASEAN claims for itself, are critical challenges that remain unaddressed.
While the communiqué refers to the South China Sea eight times in two detailed paragraphs under the sub-heading of regional and international issues, it pays lip service to the situation with an almost rhetorical reference to the “land reclamations, activities, serious incidents in the area, including actions that put the safety of all persons at risk and damage to the marine environment, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions, and may undermine peace, security, and stability in the region”.
Similarly, it again highlights the importance of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, international law and progress on the code of conduct. Next year, ASEAN and China will complete 25 years since the declaration on the conduct of parties, which was initiated with a provision to move towards a binding code within a decade. Today, we are still far from that declared intent.
Shankari Sundararaman | ASIAN AXIS | Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
(Views are personal)