The 55th Meeting of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers (AMM) in Cambodia in early August was a landmark event for the regional grouping that has been the core of regional mechanisms in the Asia-Pacific. However, even as the ASEAN turned 55, the summit threw up far more areas of concern than consensus among the members.
As the AMM concluded in Phnom Penh on August 3, it was followed by two key ministerial meetings of both the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) which are critical to the ASEAN mechanisms for the wider region as these include the external partners and key regional and global players. However, the challenges faced by the ASEAN over the Myanmar crisis, the South China Sea dispute and other issues have soured any mood for optimism in its 55th year.
The ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) highlighted some of the core challenges even as the region is still grappling with the fallout of the pandemic and post-Covid recovery. The Joint Communiqué this year did emerge, belying concerns over whether Cambodia, as chair of ASEAN, would once again hold the grouping ransom over issues relating to developments in the South China Sea as it had done in July 2012, when it last chaired the ASEAN. That year, for the first time, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting did not bring out a Joint Communiqué, indicating that consensus building within the grouping was challenged by new members with different agendas and priorities. This year’s Joint Communiqué clearly highlights three critical areas of concern, impacting the focus on ASEAN consensus.
First, Myanmar’s situation eroded even further by the end of July. For a country that has been in a state of political conflict since February 2021, in recent weeks, the excesses of the State Administration Council (SAC) led by General Min Aung Hlaing have brutalised sensitivities across the regional and global landscape. The summary executions of four political prisoners by the end of July cast a pallor of gloom over the ASEAN summit. They brought the focus fully back on the intransigence of the military regime and its brutality in addressing the political crisis within the country. The four prisoners were part of the pro-democracy groups. They had been accused of inciting violence and carrying out terror attacks against the military by using their positions to instigate the civilian militias against the SAC.
Before the ASEAN summit, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen made a personal appeal to the military leaders to postpone the executions in light of ASEAN’s Five Point Consensus to assist in resolving the political crisis. ASEAN’s debarring of Myanmar’s SAC representative from the ASEAN processes has had little impact on Myanmar’s leadership. Ignoring the appeal of the ASEAN Chair and the special envoy has been seen as a defiant posture against the Five Point Consensus, leading to a divided response from the ASEAN. The Statement by the ASEAN chair following the execution was probably one of the strongest ASEAN statements yet against Myanmar.
One of the core challenges for ASEAN has been the deliverance of humanitarian assistance. While the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) coordinates the issue of humanitarian aid, the process still remains critically undermined as the actual ground deliverance is yet to be done. While the ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ERAT) has conducted an initial appraisal, it is yet to be implemented, leaving a huge gap between plan and action. Moreover, increasing views within ASEAN have begun to look at Myanmar as a liability, given the intransigence of the military and its unwillingness to comply with any of the ASEAN initiatives, leaving little scope for including Myanmar in the ASEAN processes till some resolution to the crisis is possible.
Secondly, on issues of maritime challenges, particularly relating to the crisis over the disputed areas of the South China Sea, this meeting was a step in the right direction, with Cambodia as Chair, shaping the agenda of the meeting. The oft-recurring reference to the importance of adhering to the ‘recognised principles of international law’ and the significance of the UNCLOS remains critical, particularly in the face of repeated violations by China.
The issue of artificial islands and their extensions were raised by the member states and has been indicated in the Joint Communiqué, bringing more concerted focus. Critical to the process of evolving a Code of Conduct (CoC) is the resumption of the Joint Working Group that is entrusted with negotiating a single draft CoC to address a resolution of the South China Sea dispute. While the Joint Communiqué reiterated the importance of both restraint and non-militarisation, the actual ground realities are far more complex. In the week before the AMM, the summit meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping saw the reference to the threat of a major incident in the South China Sea as a potentially destabilising factor. Even as the ASEAN focuses on trying to build consensus, increasing belligerence from the major players will continue to undermine the regional efforts at resolving the South China Sea conflict.
Third, the regional focus on the post-Covid economic recovery has been very clearly articulated in the AMM by accepting what has become known as the Consolidated Strategy for a recovery from the pandemic. This is particularly important as the pandemic has severely hampered the socio-economic factors. One of the core areas where ASEAN has been challenged is the disruption of supply chains, impacting the emphasis on open regionalism. This is a critical area for the ASEAN as it continues to strengthen economic cooperation and supply chain resilience in response to the challenges unleashed by the pandemic.
Consensus building within the ASEAN has never been easy. But even as regional and global challenges are impacting ASEAN’s capacity for concerted action, the overarching theme for this year’s agenda, ‘ASEAN ACT: Addressing Challenges Together’, will remain more rhetorical than real.
Professor at School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi