On 13 March, ASPI DC welcomed Australian Army Chief Lt. General Simon Stuart, AO, DSC for a roundtable discussion moderated by Senior Analyst Dr Nishank Motwani at the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC.
The discussion explored the changing deterrence dynamics in the Indo-Pacific.
On 12 April, ASPI DC Director Adam Leslie joined a panel discussion on the Quad’s technology potential and strengthening connectivity in the Indo-Pacific at Yale’s inaugural GeoTech Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The panel discussion featured Channing Lee, Associate Director for Foreign Policy at the Special Competitive Studies Project; Vikram Singh, Senior Advisor to the Asia Program at the United States Institute of Peace; and Dr William Chou, Japan Chair fellow at the Hudson Institute.
A year ago, following US President Joe Biden’s election, multilateralism once again became the beating heart of global climate action. G20 leaders agreed to more ambitious near-term climate targets en route to achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century and they committed to ending inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies and cooperating on clean energy deployment to phase out coal more quickly. The willingness of China and India to address fossil fuels reflected a growing awareness of the macroeconomic risks of resisting the clean-energy transition.
These outcomes were crucial for delivering a litany of new initiatives at last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) that were dedicated to ‘keeping 1.5 alive’, in line with the Paris climate agreement’s goal for limiting the increase in global temperature to 1.5° Celsius, relative to the preindustrial average. They also helped set the stage for the historic Glasgow Climate Pact, which commits every country to phase down unabated coal use, even if India and China were able to block calls to phase out coal entirely.
Unfortunately, the stage for this week’s G20 summit in Bali could not be more different. Geopolitical and economic conditions are much less favourable, owing largely to Russia’s appalling war of aggression in Ukraine, with G7 countries backtracking on their commitments to end fossil-fuel investment as a result. Heightened US–China tensions will, one hopes, be eased somewhat by the bilateral meeting between Biden and President Xi Jinping in Bali. But forging a strong outcome in Bali will be hard.
Given that G20 countries account for around 80% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, the summit will set the tone for the final outcome of this year’s UN climate conference (COP27), which will conclude in Egypt after the G20 wraps up in Indonesia. The proceedings in Sharm El-Sheikh have already been dominated by the world’s most vulnerable countries calling for climate justice and demanding that big emitters pay up to support their transitions and livelihoods.
This is why the fight against climate change might be the unifying moment the G20 requires. And the G20’s Asian members have a vital role to play in that.
Rather than backtracking on climate action during the ongoing and compounding crises of the past year, Asian economies have deepened their resolve. Major Asian emitters headline the small list of countries that actually responded to the Glasgow Climate Pact’s call to increase their climate ambitions in 2022: India, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and Australia have all enhanced their targets. While greater ambition is needed for commitments to align with the Paris agreement’s 1.5°C target, regional momentum is moving in the right direction.
Asia is acting because it makes good policy sense. Research commissioned by our High-Level Policy Commission on Getting Asia to Net Zero shows that more ambitious climate action is a boon for the region’s economic development. If the region fully implements the climate targets it set at COP26, it will boost GDP growth by as much as 5.4% by 2030, while also creating more new jobs, reducing energy costs and strengthening energy security. This is a big deal for governments looking to escape the inflation trap and rising energy prices.
Developing economies are also aware that embracing the green transformation can help mobilise the massive amounts of investment needed to turn rhetoric into reality. For example, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are among those publishing ‘climate prosperity plans’ that, if funded, could enhance resilience, reduce poverty and spearhead economic growth.
Likewise, Indonesia and Vietnam are expected to announce new ‘just energy transition partnerships,’ replicating a model whereby developed countries committed US$8.5 billion to South Africa last year to enable a faster exit from coal while protecting fossil-fuel workers’ livelihoods. Political will and policy certainty are powerful tools for unleashing capital flows from rich donor countries, de-risking private finance and unlocking new domestic resources.
Asia finds itself in the multilateral hot seat at a critical time. India will take on the G20 presidency from Indonesia following this week’s summit, Japan will host next year’s G7 summit and the UAE, as part of the Asia–Pacific group, will host the COP28 climate conference next year. Simply put, climate action can be the common thread that helps rebuild a consensus in favour of multilateralism.
The G20 could start by seeking a unified commitment among member countries to climate action as a driver of economic recovery and growth. After India, the G20 presidency will rotate to Brazil, implying a unique opportunity to define what this looks like from the perspective of major emerging economies. Countries like Indonesia, India and Brazil could emphasise the win-win benefits of deepening cooperation.
Another way the G20 could lead is by elevating the ‘Bridgetown agenda’ championed by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley to provide emergency liquidity, expand multilateral lending and mobilise the private sector, in part by seeking a new issuance of US$650 billion in special drawing rights (the International Monetary Fund’s reserve asset). Advancing the ‘Bridgetown agenda’ will require political will from the world’s most powerful lenders and shareholders.
Under India’s leadership next year, the G20 should seek to achieve tangible outcomes. This could include devising a blueprint for modern, resilient energy systems; outlining a supportive policy infrastructure for critical climate technologies, like green hydrogen and battery storage; and getting climate finance to work for all developing countries. India could also use the G77 bloc of developing economies as a bellwether to ensure that the G20 is meeting the needs of the world’s most vulnerable countries.
Multilateralism is on life support at a moment when it is critical for humanity’s survival. By putting climate action at the heart of their efforts to rebuild consensus and reinvigorate multilateralism, Asian countries will prop open the world’s window of opportunity to prevent climate disaster. They will also catalyse their own ability to benefit from the massive economic and social opportunities created by the green transition.
Many parts of Asia seem to be emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic relatively well. But overcoming the public health crisis is only one challenge the region faces. Where climate change is concerned, Asia may be far more vulnerable than other parts of the world.
Building on global research published at the start of 2020, the McKinsey Global Institute recently estimated the probable impact of the physical climate risks facing Asia today and over the next three decades. Our analysis involved micro cases that illustrate exposure to climate-change extremes and proximity to physical thresholds, as well as assessments of the potential socioeconomic impact in 16 countries (Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea).
Although climate scientists use scenarios ranging from lower (representative concentration pathway 2.6) to higher (RCP 8.5) concentrations of carbon dioxide, we focused on RCP 8.5 in order to assess the full inherent physical risk of climate change in the absence of further decarbonisation. We found that Asia was more vulnerable than other regions to climate risk in three key respects.
First, by 2050, up to 1.2 billion people globally—the vast majority of them in Asia—could be living in areas with a non-zero annual probability of lethal heat waves. Second, Asia accounts for more than two-thirds of the global GDP that is at risk due to the loss of outdoor working hours resulting from the increase in heat and humidity by 2050. Third, by 2050, Asia could account for more than three-quarters of the global capital stock damaged by riverine flooding.
In two other areas, however, we found that Asia’s vulnerability was on a par with or slightly below the global average: disruption to food systems, and destruction of natural ecosystems for local flora and fauna.
Moreover, McKinsey Global Institute’s ‘Four Asias’ framework—consisting of Frontier Asia, Emerging Asia, Advanced Asia and China—reveals noticeable differences within the region. In particular, countries with lower levels of GDP per capita in Frontier and Emerging Asia are most at risk from climate change.
Frontier Asia, comprising Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, could experience extreme increases in heat and humidity that may significantly affect work and liveability. Emerging Asia, including major Southeast Asian economies like Thailand and the Philippines, will experience a similar (though potentially less extreme) trend, along with growing exposure to extreme precipitation events. Under RCP 8.5, the share of working hours lost to rising heat and humidity in climate-exposed regions in Frontier and Emerging Asia could increase by 7–12 percentage points by 2050, compared with a 2–5 percentage point increase in Advanced Asia and China.
Advanced Asia, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, is expected to be a net agricultural beneficiary of climate change over the near term. But for some countries in the region, drought and water scarcity will pose major challenges.
Although China has a heterogeneous climate, the country is predicted to become hotter. As a result, the average share of effective outdoor working hours lost each year in exposed areas could increase from 4.5% in 2020 to as much as 6% in 2030 and 8.5% in 2050.
The socioeconomic impact of climate change will increase across Asia as thresholds of physical systems are breached and knock-on effects materialise. For example, almost one-third of Australia could have more than 20 additional high-fire-risk days per year, increasing the share of the country’s capital stock exposed to at least five such days from 44% today to 60% in 2050. Likewise, without additional climate adaptation, the cost of real estate and infrastructure damage from a 100-year flood in Tokyo could more than double to US$14.2 billion by 2050.
Although Asia faces significant climate challenges, it can overcome them through effective adaptation and mitigation—and seems well positioned to do so. For starters, the massive infrastructure investment planned throughout the region, amounting to US$1.7 trillion annually through 2030, provides a unique opportunity to embed climate risk management in infrastructure design.
Nonetheless, developing a comprehensive regional adaptation plan is essential. It should include diagnosing climate risks and enabling a response, protecting people and assets, building resilience, reducing exposure, and providing finance and insurance. Adaptation is likely to entail tough choices about what to protect and what to relocate, as well as how to safeguard the most vulnerable populations.
Asia also plays a critical role in global mitigation measures. Key emissions-reduction efforts include shifting from coal—which accounts for 90% of emissions by the region’s power sector—to renewables. Asia also needs to decarbonise industrial operations such as steel and cement; the region currently generates about 80% of global CO2 emissions in these industries. In addition, Asia must transform agriculture and forestry, which account for 10% of the region’s CO2 emissions and over 40% of its methane emissions, and decarbonise road transportation and buildings.
A critical part of enabling this transition will be managing the risks that may arise, such as rising costs, labour displacement and impacts on specific communities. In India, for example, there’s a significant risk of electricity price increases caused by the capital expenditure needed to install renewables, and of job losses as the country’s power mix shifts away from coal.
In China, finding ways to scale up decarbonisation technologies in steel production will be key to preventing disruption of the industry’s massive output. In Indonesia, it will be essential to support people whose livelihoods depend on agriculture as the sector decarbonises. And in Japan, policymakers could facilitate the transition to battery electric vehicles by providing incentives and policies to help overcome the higher up-front cost.
Much of Asia is already responding to the adaptation and mitigation challenges of climate change. By building on these efforts, sharing best practices and galvanising support, the region can emerge as a leader in tackling one of the world’s biggest threats while also promoting sustainable growth and prosperity.
Three years, or halfway, into Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, both internal and external security concerns remain prominent in the consciousness of the country’s officials and security experts.
Anxiety is particularly acute in the immediate maritime areas: the disputed land features and waters of the South China Sea to the west, and the Sulu and Celebes (Sulawesi) Seas to the south and southwest of the country. In the South China Sea, the main concern has been China’s expansive claim, and developments over the past year point to more trouble ahead over this longstanding issue.
On the positive side, Manila and Beijing have regularly convened a bilateral consultative mechanism that’s exclusively intended for discussion of issues arising from the South China Sea disputes. ASEAN and China continued to work towards a regional code of conduct, making incremental progress on a single draft negotiating text.
However, the incontrovertible facts remain: China has permanently altered the geophysical and security environments in Southeast Asia through its construction and militarisation of artificial islands in the South China Sea since 2014.
China maintains a constant presence near areas occupied by other claimant states, mobilising both civilian and military vessels in assertions of sovereignty and effectively preventing some countries (not only the Philippines but also Vietnam and Malaysia) from undertaking resource exploitation in the disputed areas.
China has also continued to reject the 2016 arbitration ruling that determined many of its actions to be illegal infringements of Philippine maritime rights.
Not only were Chinese actions not restrained by diplomacy or international legal decisions, but it appeared that in the spiralling power competition with the United States (fuelled by trade and technology wars) and domestic power politics in China (where Xi Jinping is driving a deepening of centralised control of his party-state), the Chinese were becoming increasingly nationalistic, ambitious and assertive.
The Philippines–China consultations and ASEAN–China negotiations were intended to be proactive agenda-setters in shaping new directions for relations with China. Yet they may achieve little more than legitimising a new status quo that allows China’s behaviour to go uncontested.
Meanwhile, Duterte remained vocal and resentful of America’s and other countries’ criticism of his human rights record in the war on drugs. However, during a visit to Russia he called the United States ‘a close friend of the Philippines’. He also affirmed that the Philippines continued to uphold the values of freedom and liberalism, signalling that visiting Russia did not signify a break from the West. This was in sharp contrast to his first visit to China in 2016 when he signalled the ‘pivot to China’ by announcing a ‘separation’ from the United States.
On the trade war between China and the US, Duterte explained at the recent ASEAN Summit in Thailand that the Philippines wasn’t taking sides. The independent foreign policy stance was becoming less about a pivot to China and more about diversification of partnerships while strengthening defence capabilities in anticipation of continuing maritime security threats and challenges.
The Philippines’ other major regional security concern is the spread of terrorism and violent extremism. Domestically, peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Muslim Mindanao seems to have been brought within reach through the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region. Of course, immense governance challenges have to be faced to achieve sustainable development and dependable security for this conflict-torn region.
One lesson the Philippines can draw is that failure to contain conflict within one’s own borders creates spill-over tensions and vulnerabilities in relations with neighbouring states.
The defeat of Islamic State in the Middle East resulted in a spike in extremist influence and activity in Southeast Asia. Some fighters are feared to have returned to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, while others sought to continue their jihadist struggle for a caliphate in places where governance has been traditionally weak, including in Muslim Mindanao.
The five-month siege of the city of Marawi in 2017, led by the local IS-affiliated Maute group, demonstrated the fragile conditions in the southern Philippines, as well as the capacity of extremists to wage urban warfare.
Long steeped in counterinsurgency strategies waged in the Philippine countryside, the Armed Forces of the Philippines now faces the challenge of building the capacity to cope with armed conflict in major population centres, and working with like-minded states to break up the regional and transnational criminal networks that feed violent extremism.
Counterterrorism cooperation between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia acquired a strong maritime dimension with the implementation of the Trilateral Cooperative Arrangement in 2016. The three countries conduct intelligence-sharing, coordinated maritime patrols, and joint air missions over an area of common interest in the Sulu and Celebes (Sulawesi) Seas.
The signing of the agreement was followed by a drastic decline in Abu Sayyaf kidnappings . The drop was attributable not to the agreement per se, but to more effective control and prevention of border movements unilaterally imposed by Philippine and Malaysian authorities in their areas of jurisdiction. Nonetheless, the scourge of terrorism can be defeated only through cooperation with neighbouring countries and with others who share this major global concern.
The Duterte government’s promotion of a more diversified and omni-directional foreign policy—including preservation of traditional alliances—may be exactly what is needed to foster the agility that huge uncertainties in the external environment demand.
Ultimately, however, the only reliable guarantee—whether of foreign policy autonomy, territorial integrity, or security against external armed threats and internal destabilising forces—is a government that takes the development of its defence and security capabilities seriously.
The recent geopolitical history of Afghanistan can be divided into five phases. But now it is at the cusp of another transition and the defining features of the new phase remain to be seen.
During the first phase, from 1974 to 1979, Pakistan began to give refuge and training to Islamists who could be deployed against Mohammed Daoud Khan’s government. Then, from 1979 to 1989, Pakistan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia financed, trained and equipped the mujahidin who fought against Soviet troops. From 1989 to 1996, Afghanistan was in transition as regional warlords gained power, closed in on Kabul and overthrew President Mohammad Najibullah. From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban government ushered in a period of wanton savagery and—with the exceptions of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—diplomatic isolation.
The fifth phase began in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks. Since then, the US has been embroiled in a war supporting a patchwork Afghan government against a resurgent Pakistan-backed Taliban. The sixth phase raises two questions: did the US lose the war in Afghanistan and, if so, why?
The answer to the first question is both yes and no. The US has failed to eliminate the Taliban from Afghanistan and entirely rule out the possibility of the country again becoming a haven for terrorists. The ongoing peace talks with the Taliban and the impending reduction of the US military presence in the country are a clear recognition of this. The American public is war-weary and President Donald Trump is keen to declare an end to the longest international conflict in US history before the 2020 presidential election.
At the same time, the US achieved many of its initial core objectives. The Taliban was expelled from Kabul and, despite the current peace talks, its uncontested return remains doubtful. Osama bin Laden was killed in neighbouring Pakistan, Taliban leader Mullah Omar died in hiding, and his successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan in 2016. A semblance of a functioning state—including a national government and a military—is now a reality, however flawed. And Pakistan remains under pressure to clean up its act.
But, overall, things did not go according to plan for the US, for four main reasons. First, and most obviously, it made political mistakes, born largely of ignorance and hubris, although often apparent only in hindsight. After 2001, the US imposed on Afghanistan a presidential-style government with inadequate checks and balances. After 2003, policymakers became distracted by the initially more intense conflict in Iraq and withdrew resources and attention from Afghanistan. Moreover, they paid insufficient attention in the early years to building up the Afghan National Security Forces. In addition, democratisation efforts were mostly top-down rather than bottom-up, and elections often were scheduled before the appropriate political institutions were in place.
The second set of mistakes were military in nature. After 2008, US war planners believed that a counter-insurgency approach would work. But a ‘surge’ of the kind that initially reduced violence in Iraq failed in Afghanistan for a number of reasons.
For starters, the US was unable to co-opt key adversaries, as it had done with Sunni militias in Iraq following the ‘Anbar awakening’. Moreover, it had no solution to cross-border havens in Pakistan, from which Taliban forces could plot and launch continued attacks, and it underestimated the governance challenges in Afghanistan, which had much deeper roots than in Iraq and made development and state-building more difficult. And when US President Barack Obama announced the surge in Afghanistan, he undermined the effort by also setting out a withdrawal timeframe. That was a mistake that even Trump was wise enough to avoid.
The US also failed to learn from its mistakes. Comprehensive reviews of its Afghan policy that produced unpalatable or ineffective recommendations gave way to comprehensive reviews that produced equally unpalatable or ineffective outcomes. In particular, successive US administrations, military commanders and diplomats believed that buying Pakistan’s tactical cooperation through threats, aid or military support could prove sustainable. The unwillingness to address Pakistan’s support for terrorism head-on was driven by US concerns—real or inflated—about that country’s nuclear-weapons program. As a result, for years, many US policymakers persuaded themselves that the key to peace in Afghanistan lay in pressuring India to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and thereby somehow allay Pakistani insecurities.
Finally, the US fell victim to its own propaganda. Consider, for example, the notion of Afghanistan as the ‘graveyard of empires’, which reflected Britain’s effort in the late 1800s to explain its failures in the First Anglo-Afghan War and the emergence of Afghanistan as a buffer zone between the British and Russian empires. It was later propagated by the US, Pakistan and others in the 1980s and the notion went hand in hand with support for the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahidin. But the reality is that Afghanistan (or parts of it) had at various points been part of the Kushan, Hellenistic, Persian, Mughal and Sikh empires, and was at the centre of the Ghaznavid and Durrani empires.
Given its location at the crossroads of Asia, Afghanistan will remain of interest to Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and India. And as long as terrorist groups can train and operate internationally from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US and Europe will also have a continued interest in the country’s future. In assessing that future, it will be important to reflect upon the recent past, in order to break the cycle of unlearned lessons that has brought Afghanistan and its interlocutors to this point.
In October 2016, before the US presidential election, I suggested that Australia was entering a foreign-policy crisis period—given the relative decline of American power in the Asian region, the likely withdrawal of the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. We’ve had these crises before, especially in the late 1940s, before the US alliance replaced the British Empire as our protective umbrella. After seven decades of that alliance, it was clear that we needed to work creatively on a Plan B, and I thought that some Turnbull government initiatives on Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines were signs of new thinking.
My focus was on diplomatic and political strategy. Over the past year, the prime minister’s ASEAN summit in March helped position Australia in the region, and we continue to cooperate with South Korea in ASEAN-led organisations and the MIKTA partnership (which includes Indonesia).
Security cooperation with our long-term economic partner Japan develops incrementally, with talk early this year of a reciprocal access agreement. In the case of India, Peter Varghese—former DFAT secretary—has just completed a massive report on how to foster closer security and economic bonds. The signing of the TPP—without the US, but including Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam—appears shrewd, as does our caution about confronting China in the South China Sea. The continued wooing of President Trump may be less productive in regional terms.
As the Trump administration has become increasingly unreliable and bizarre, discussion of a Plan B is concentrating more sharply on defence capacity. Strategic analyst Paul Dibb says we must ‘focus more on our region of primary strategic concern’, and also need to increase our defence expenditure. But he still believes that America won’t ‘pull out of Asia’ and says that Australia needs to ensure that it ‘continue[s] to have access to highly advanced American military equipment’ to ‘maintain our technological edge in our region’. Insisting that Australia has ‘no credible defence without the US alliance’, Dibb continues largely to think within the old paradigm.
ASPI chief Peter Jennings has been formulating a genuine Plan B. Although hoping Australia will do everything to ‘sustain the alliance’, he believes little thought has been given to ‘the worst-case scenario’. Jennings argues that we must ‘do more for our own security’, positioning ourselves to operate ‘without confidence in the US security umbrella’. To that end, Australia must lift its defence spending to 2.5% or 3% of GDP, develop nuclear-powered submarines, and strengthen its defence relationships with Japan, Indonesia and India.
It’s hard to believe that that level of military enhancement will equip Australia to operate separately from the US. Going back to an earlier crisis time in our foreign relations, the late 1960s (when once again the level of US commitment to the Asian region was in doubt), the Gorton government was reluctant to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and gave serious thought to developing an Australian nuclear weapon. John Gorton’s Liberal successor, William McMahon, returned to reliance on the US as the primary national security strategy. But another senior Liberal, Malcolm Fraser, also wanted a more ‘independent Australian foreign policy’, and to him (as reported in his memoirs) that meant ‘greater and more intense alliances within the region’.
The Gorton nuclear position, it must be said, has at least a degree of logical integrity. It is genuinely muscular, but would require sophisticated and courageous advocacy in Australia and our neighbourhood.
As to the Jennings (and Fraser) emphasis on developing greater defence engagement in Asia, it has promise—but it’s a complex task, and one that must be enmeshed with broader political and economic diplomacy. There’s a general wariness in the region about alliances. Allying against China is dangerous for us, not only because Australia (by any international standards) is economically bound to China, but also because many other countries in the region want to avoid Cold War–style confrontation. That’s certainly the case in most of Southeast Asia, as was made clear at the Australia–ASEAN meetings in Sydney this year.
Leaders on both sides of Australian politics have expressed support for some form of quadrilateral (US, Japan, India, Australia) security cooperation. At times, each of these countries has signalled an interest, but we would be unwise at this stage to assume serious commitment on any of their parts.
Euan Graham has suggested that Australia and Japan are ‘more united in mutual caution than shared strategic ambition’. Japan, of course, is anxious about China, but the emergence since 2008 of the three-cornered (China, Japan, South Korea) Trilateral Northeast Asia Summit is an indication of a new commitment to reconciliation. India too has its serious China issues, but in 2017 became a full member of China’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization—and this year again kept Australia out of its Malabar naval exercises with the US.
The strategic context in the Asian region today is fluid, and Australians tend to prefer black-and-white clarity. But if we reject a Gorton ‘Fortress Australia’ option, our Plan B must stress diplomacy—and must recognise that deeper engagement with Asia will require much patience. We’ll need to look beyond our immediate security or economic gains, and that is always difficult for short-term democratic governments.
Building Australia’s independent influence in Asia must be a long game—moving between the different nations in the region, large and small, and sometimes leveraging relations with one state to advance engagement with another. Well-publicised successes with ASEAN countries (particularly Indonesia) always enhance our reputation and strengthen our voice with major powers.
Promoting the ideal of a rules-based order—as we have been—is a potentially productive measure, but the focus should be on working with Asian partners to gain a consensus understanding of ‘the rules’. We have a long track record in international rule-making, particularly in the founding period of the United Nations. At that time, as Paul Hasluck explained long ago (‘Australia and the formation of the United Nations’, Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. XL, no. III, 1954, pp. 133–78), we played the role of broker between major and smaller states. And we could gain respect today by becoming a broker in a civilisational context.
Working creatively with our region—in almost any way—is what matters. To avoid becoming a ‘lonely nation’ in a possible post-American Asia ought to be a high priority, unless we wish to choose and fund a Fortress Australia.
August has been replete with praise for ASEAN as it celebrates 50 years on the job. It is worth reflecting on the impact ASEAN has had on Australia and its place in our future.
First, what ASEAN did not do.
In its early years, ASEAN was given a sense of purpose by the fear of communism. However, its actual role in curbing the latter was limited. When ASEAN was created, the emergency in Malaya was over and Suharto had already been categorical in dealing with the communists in Indonesia. While Thailand had problems with communists in its northeast, their defeat owed little to ASEAN.
Some argue that ASEAN’s role after the fall of Saigon in 1975 was pivotal in containing Vietnamese expansion and in the eventual achievement of a settlement in Cambodia. We should give credit to ASEAN where credit is due. But Chinese and American pressure on Vietnam at a time when the Soviet Union was decreasingly in a position to fight proxy wars was as salient a factor. Vietnam needed to get out of the economic straitjacket which the war and its own statist system had imposed. And on the Cambodia settlement, the last chapter in the Indochina wars, Australia did much of the grunt work.
In recent times, some of ASEAN’s own members have frequently rehearsed ASEAN’s failure to make real progress on security issues (the South China Sea, for example) or on the multitude of economic initiatives which are part of its discourse. This is partly because of its insistence on moving by consensus and doing things the ASEAN way.
That said, ASEAN sits on the credit side of our ledger, but perhaps not for reasons which are commonly adduced.
While ASEAN’s adherence to consensus has contributed to its spending too much time on the treadmill and too little in making progress on the ground, its modus operandi has also diminished the danger of frictions that could have led to ASEAN’s break-up. Its informal sense of community has done much to keep the peace in the region among the original members and was important in healing the divide of the Indochina wars. ASEAN has prospered from peace—as have we.
ASEAN has also been the centrepiece of Asian regional architecture—the ASEAN dialogue partner system, APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit. While no realist would suggest that the Asian architecture has done everything intended of it, it could not have been developed at all without ASEAN in the middle—because the major powers tend to deny rivals a central role in such schema. It’s because ASEAN hasn’t been able to constitute a powerful phalanx, and because it has been reasonably neutral, that it has been allowed the centrality in Asian affairs that it has sought. Ironically, it has thus derived much of its authority from relative weakness.
As to the future, these factors raise the question of whether it’s in Australia’s interests to have the stronger, more assertive ASEAN which we say we would like to see in the context of China’s growing influence in Asia. Yes, it would be nice to see ASEAN being more assertive, but how much more? The role it enjoys as the prime mover in Asian regional forums, and to some degree the influence it derives from that role, depend on its acceptability to all and its cohesion. Too much assertiveness within ASEAN could endanger both.
Damage to ASEAN’s cohesion and acceptability could in turn menace the fragile web of understandings that underpin the structures we currently have in Asia.
If these arguments have merit, what should Australia do about ASEAN?
Above all, we need ASEAN to survive. If its unity is more important than its robustness, so be it. That unity has served us well and may provide some stabilising presence should the strategic climate in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific deteriorate. And we need our imperfect regional machinery—built around ASEAN—to keep working. But if indeed it does become more assertive, the drive must come from within.
If we put store by ASEAN unity and the value of ASEAN centrality to the Asian architecture, the case is unconvincing (other than in an essentially economic context) for a structurally closer Australian association with ASEAN and negligible for Australian membership of ASEAN—even if we really wanted either.
Many in ASEAN wonder about the integrity of our professed identification with the region given the wholesale priority we have put on our security dealings with the United States since 9/11 and the degree to which we alternatively blow hot and lukewarm on our engagement with the region.
But even if were we to convince ASEAN that we meant what we said about closer association, it’s impossible to see the Australian political style and the current overriding priority we attach to the American relationship permitting ASEAN’s acceptance of our overtures. Moreover, ASEAN’s acceptability to others as the centre of the Asian region depends on maintenance of its broad neutrality and attachment to consensus, which would be contradicted by too close a structural relationship with Australia, at least as our current security policies are constituted.
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t do more of what we already do with ASEAN or continue strengthening our bilateral dealings in Southeast Asia. We should do both. But for us, ASEAN probably works best as it is.
Commentary on ASEAN’s 50th birthday has been largely congratulatory, and deservedly so. Observers have recalled that back in 1967 there were apprehensions about the possible spread of communism further into Southeast Asia, as well as tensions between Indonesia and Malaysia, between Singapore and Malaysia, and between Vietnam and the non-communist nations of the region.
ASEAN, starting with its five founding members (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines), and then later with the addition of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, has done much to foster a sense of community. Of course, there are disagreements among the member states, but generally there’s an effort to prevent tensions from getting out of hand. ASEAN has had some success in projecting a collective identity internationally. It has also benefited from perceptions that it’s been a region of strong economic growth, in contrast to much of the rest of the world.
In recent times, there’s been more questioning of ASEAN’s coherence, its economic course and its relevance as a force in the political and security affairs of the wider region. This is justified. Economic growth rates in the member countries are now decidedly mixed. ASEAN governments have been slow in developing joint positions on key economic and other policy challenges. A marked failure has been ASEAN’s inability to respond with clarity and force to China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, including at the ASEAN Regional Forum and related meetings in Manila earlier this month. China’s march as the emerging regional hegemon rolls on, aided and abetted by Cambodia and Laos, which risk sliding into roles as Chinese satrapies.
The prospects for ASEAN to recover momentum as a vehicle for collective progress and regional influence are cloudy at best.
Developments within several of the major ASEAN member states have caused them to be domestically preoccupied. Malaysia is grappling with the import of the 1MDB corruption allegations swirling around Prime Minister Najib Razak and his government, and sectarian and racist bigotry is on the rise in the political and social sphere. Thailand has been in something of a time warp since reverting to military rule in 2014 and has yet to work out a sustainable equilibrium between its principal national institutions. Myanmar’s governance remains in transition, and hopes of fully democratic rule are as yet unfulfilled. Indonesia has done little since the election of President Joko Widodo in 2014 to assert what one might think should be its natural regional leadership role. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that ASEAN as a grouping is in a state of drift.
The good news is that economic integration within ASEAN is likely to continue, albeit driven more by the private sector and demographic trends than by government fiat.
Across the ASEAN economies, state-owned enterprises play a major role, often drawing on their government links to develop their business. Within the private sector, much of the business activity in the region is in the hands of ethnic Chinese who are nationals of the ASEAN countries where they’re based. Through dialect group and family networks, their reach into other ASEAN economies—and China and elsewhere—is enhanced. Thus we see Singaporean and Malaysian banks with branches around ASEAN. Thailand’s Central Department Store group has established itself in Indonesia. Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand conglomerate has agribusiness, retail and telecommunications operations across ASEAN. One can expect these business networks to foster the development of an integrated ASEAN economy, as well as, in time, the harmonisation of regulatory structures.
Demographic trends, along with labour market forces and porous borders, are already increasing people movements within ASEAN. Thailand, in particular, has seen an influx of people from Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam, estimated to total 2 million or more. The UN classifies Thailand as an ‘aging society’, and the World Bank predicts a contraction of the working-age population of about 10% between 2010 and 2040. Malaysia is estimated to have more than 3 million foreign workers, most having ‘migrated’ illegally from Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar, along with a considerable number of refugees and asylum seekers. Singapore has a very low birthrate and relies heavily on foreign workers, notably professionals from Malaysia and Indonesia. Over time, such movements can be expected to bring about closer personal and economic links between ASEAN countries, notwithstanding the challenges of legitimising the status of the ‘migrants’.
Enhanced connectivity across ASEAN, encouraged by improved transport links, along with the tourism and business flows supported by increased prosperity, will assist in developing mutual awareness and in all likelihood a greater sense of regional solidarity.
To make real progress, including in the regional political and security spheres, ASEAN governments will individually have to lift their sights above their internal preoccupations. Among the challenges ASEAN faces as a region, China’s rise, which presents a threat as well as opportunities, is the biggest. Indonesia and Vietnam will be critical in addressing this: each has a robust sense of its own independence and a historical wariness about China.
ASEAN’s leaders are worried about what history tells them about the future of Southeast Asia. The fears about the lessons of history are a discordant note as ASEAN steps up to a great moment in its history—the creation of an economic, political-security and social Community in December 2015.
Perhaps this moment of historic creation is partly driven by dark understandings of history. As ASEAN embraces a date with regional destiny, its leaders are invoking some tough history as reference points.
The President of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino, stirs headlines by comparing China with Hitler’s Germany. In this metaphor, the Philippines has the role of Czechoslovakia. Aquino ran this line last year to The New York Times and during his recent visit to Japan.
The point about Aquino’s history isn’t just the Germany–China analogy, but the casting of the US in the Britain/France role—the great powers that stood mute while the small state (the Philippines as Czechoslovakia) got monstered.
Another history that keeps popping up is Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian war 2,500 years ago, the conflict between Athens and Sparta. The Thucydides trap that ASEAN sees is different to the Thucydides trap that worries China and the US. Different aspects of history for different folks.
Professor Graham Allison’s version of the trap is the danger posed when a rising power confronts a ruling power.
For Allison, the crucial news is this line: ‘It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.’ Applied today, this becomes China’s rise, US fear and inevitable conflict:
Never has a nation [China] moved so far, so fast, up the international rankings on all dimensions of power. In a generation, a state whose gross domestic product was smaller than Spain’s has become the second-largest economy in the world. If we were betting on the basis of history, the answer to the question about Thucydides’s trap appears obvious. In 11 of 15 cases since 1500 where a rising power emerged to challenge a ruling power, war occurred.
The trap has captured the attention of China’s leader, Xi Jinping. He told the Berggruen Institute:
The argument that strong countries are bound to seek hegemony does not apply to China. This is not in the DNA of this country given our long historical and cultural background. Also China fully understands that we need a peaceful and stable internal and external environment to develop ourselves. We all to need to work together to avoid the Thucydides trap—destructive tensions between an emerging power and established powers, or between established powers themselves.
When ASEAN leaders go to Thucydides, however, they are interested in a different trap – what big powers can do to the small.
The Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, had his Thucydides moment at the Asia Pacific Roundtable last year, with this bit of dark history:
Imagine a world where institutions, rules and norms are ignored, forgotten or cast aside; in which countries with large economies and strong armies dominate, forcing the rest to accept the outcome. This would be a world where, in the words of the Greek historian Thucydides, ‘The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’.
Going Peloponnesian a few weeks ago, Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, worried about the same history:
It should not be a world where might is right, where the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must. It should be a world where legitimacy and constructive engagement are the international norm, and every country, big and small, can compete peacefully for the chance to prosper.
The strong doing as they will and the weak suffering as they must is what Athens told the small state of Melos in the Melian dialogue, demanding surrender and payment of tribute. Melos refused to yield, claiming the right to remain neutral (or lean towards Sparta) on grounds of justice and honour. After a siege, Athens infamously carried out its threat to kill every Melian male of arms-bearing age and sold the women and children into slavery.
Such history speaks to core aims of ASEAN neutrality and centrality. Neutrality for individual ASEAN states has a distinct Melian flavour—the right to stand aloof or to lean between China and the US, depending on the issue. The ASEAN fear is of not being central to decisions and being forced to pick sides under duress.
The ASEAN version of the Thucydides trap is another version of the conundrum expressed by Wang Gungwu: ASEAN’s problem is to form a realistic assessment of China’s intentions and America’s resolve.
Musing on the prospect of tough choices is such a habit it qualifies as part of the ASEAN way. Coral Bell’s line was that NATO is ever in crisis; in the same manner, ASEAN is ever tormented by existential angst. The history lessons feed the angst.
At the time of the 1993 federal election I was shirt-fronted by an ardent South Australian conservationist appalled at bipartisan political support for defence spending when there was, apparently, an enormous feral cat problem attriting the wildlife in the Adelaide hills. To be clear, my petitioner thought it was the problem that was enormous rather than the cats themselves, but the solution was to put the ADF onto a feline search and destroy mission. This would surely be a good use for all those expensive weapons. Army’s 16th Air Land Regiment based at Inverbrackie SA would no doubt turn the moggie tide with their RBS-70 short-range missiles.
Kym Bergmann’s piece belling the cat on Tony Abbott’s surprise visit to Iraq is reminiscent of my 1993 experience. He ‘wonders what the people in affected areas such as the Mt Lofty Ranges consider the greater danger: an immediate roaring wall of flame and smoke, or the barbarians of the Islamic State (IS) in northern Iraq.’ Read more
In the wake of the US President’s decision to pull out of any engagements in Asia surrounding the APEC summit in Bali last week, critics of the US rebalance to Asia policy have exploited his absence as evidence of US regional strategic bluster.
For the most part, the Chinese media avoided the temptation of hubris, taking a more conciliatory tone and played up the central role of China’s regional economic engagement at the summit. Chinese leaders will have recalled the abrupt departure by Hu Jintao from the G8 summit in Italy in 2009 as insurrection broke out in troubled Xinjiang.
The US has been very quick off the mark with rebuttals, proclaiming the Asia pivot to be firmly rooted in Washington DC’s foreign policy. Standing in for the President, Secretary of State Kerry’s presence in Bali was a notable exception to his predisposition for the quagmire in the Middle East, viewed by many as another counterweight to the Asia pivot. Read more