Immediately following the 26–29 April ASEAN Summit in Manila, many Southeast Asia-watchers were disappointed, but not altogether surprised, when the official statement omitted the 2016 UNCLOS Tribunal ruling, as well as references to ‘land reclamation’ and ‘militarization’ (which were in the draft version). It did note the operationalisation of the Guidelines for Hotline Communications for senior officials during crises as well as the application of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea in the South China Sea. The Statement also heralded the possible completion of a framework for the Code of Conduct by the middle of this year.

This recurring pattern of passive stance and false progress is all too familiar. Since 2012, when Cambodia impeded ASEAN’s ability to produce a joint statement, analysts whose view of the sub-region has been limited to headlines have precipitously focused their gaze on the group’s meetings and summits, scouring communiques and parsing out sentences for anything related to the South China Sea (what one analyst dubbed ‘ASEANology’). And every year, those wanting to see the Association take a stronger position vis-a-vis China are disappointed (see a graded comparison of ASEAN’s South China Sea statements here).

But rather than rehash the ‘glass half full/half empty’ debates, perhaps we should ask whether the strategic lens through which we view ASEAN is muddied or skewed. After all, that lens may be as, if not more, important than the events themselves. The ‘ASEANology’ trend in that regard indicates the growing prominence of a US–China lens, where any developments in the region are measured by whether they benefit one of the two major powers at the expense of the other. In other words, a US–China lens views Southeast Asia as nothing more than a battleground for Washington and Beijing in their strategic competition with each other.

China’s increasingly hegemonic behaviour—whether in the South China Sea or in its recent heavy-handed approach to enforcing the One China Policy—has rapidly changed the region’s strategic landscape. And America’s lacklustre military and political response has perhaps further cemented the regional dynamics into an overarching US–China trajectory. But a US–China lens cannot help us grasp the nuanced regional dynamics in Southeast Asia.

For one thing, ASEAN’s trajectory is too complex for a single South China Sea yardstick. There’s a reason why the issue only occupies two paragraphs out of 126 in the recent Chair’s Statement. Focusing on the South China Sea alone ignores the dozens of policies and programs ASEAN’s been developing or aims to achieve in a wide-range of issues, from IUU fishing to infrastructure connectivity, human rights and regional economic architecture.

Further, while analysts believe that ASEAN centrality is tied to the South China Sea, regional governments put more stock in the group’s ability to implement its three-pronged ‘ASEAN Community’ project as critical to its ability to shape the regional architecture. As a senior Singaporean diplomat said during the 2016 Shangri-La Dialogue, ‘The South China Sea is only the flavour of the month—a very strong one, but not a permanent one.’

Additionally, a US–China lens subsumes Southeast Asian interests and concerns to the strategic calculus between Beijing and Washington. Put crudely, the strategic value of Southeast Asia in Washington is then measured by how and when ASEAN stands up to China in the South China Sea, while Beijing’s concern is whether regional states are westernised or belong in Washington’s camp—the only conceivable reason they might criticise China’s policy on the South China Sea.

Needless to say, such narratives ignore regional states’ interests while amplifying the strategic asymmetries between the US and China being imposed upon Southeast Asia. They could also draw other regional states into the fray. Australia’s position on the South China Sea, for example, is often judged critically, including by Beijing, because it’s perceived as toeing the American line. Similarly, others have criticised Indonesia’s position on the South China Sea for being too soft on China at the expense of ASEAN.

This magnetic centripetal force of the US–China dynamic further obscures the domestic political considerations driving Southeast Asian leaders. In fact, one of the biggest drawbacks of a US–China lens is its assumption of the primacy of geopolitics—that states should do what their geopolitical interests require them to do. But as we’ve seen in recent years, domestic politics reigns supreme behind the balancing acts of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam, among others, in their engagement with China and the US.

A deeper, more nuanced understanding of ASEAN and Southeast Asia is essential for regional stability in the Indo-Pacific. Adopting a US–China lens, consciously or not, will make it harder for us to contribute to that understanding as it skews our ability to view the region within its own terms and hinders our capacity to craft the appropriate strategic policies accordingly.

ASEAN is ever beset by existential angst. The ‘A’ in ASEAN stands for Angst as well as Association. Regard this as more description than criticism. The Angst-Association of South East Asian Nations always has lots to worry about. Angst and anxiety are rational responses.

The questions are constant: can the association hold together? Can it actually do anything? Will ASEAN be crushed as it’s courted by the bigger beasts of Asia? Celebrating its 50th birthday in August, ASEAN pumps out celebration. And, simultaneously, ASEAN engages in one of the things it does best—agonises over tough times and hard choices.

The public tone of the summit of the 10 ASEAN leaders in Manila was set by a quintessentially ASEAN theme: ‘Partnering for Change, Engaging the World’. The not-so-private measure of difficult choices was what the leaders could agree to say about the South China Sea.

ASEAN confronts China’s terraforming: using great walls of sand to create sand castles on rocks and reefs. As usual, ASEAN consensus decreed that the Association speak softly. The torturous travail of the chairman’s statement is the new measure of ASEAN angst, from the low point in 2012 when no statement could be agreed on. In Manila, the statement emerged 12 hours after the summit ended. Dropped from the latest communiqué were references to land reclamation and militarisation from last year’s statement that had been included in earlier drafts of this year’s text. ASEAN’s ‘serious concern’ in 2016 this year dropped to ‘concern’.

For the pundits, it’s just a matter of dusting off the usual headlines about ‘ASEAN in crisis’ or ‘ASEAN’s failure’. As an example, here’s Huong Le Thu with an acid take on ASEAN’s ‘weak unity and low effectiveness in responding to China’s pressure’, on its embrace of ‘de facto appeasement’.

An interesting twist, though, is that ASEAN thinks it’s going to get something from China in return for playing nice and going soft on the Manila communiqué language. The chairman’s statement claims a negotiating win is only months away: ‘We took note of the improving cooperation between ASEAN and China. We welcomed the progress to complete a framework of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC) by the middle of this year, in order to facilitate the early conclusion of an effective COC.’ China promises a 50th birthday gift.

Give ASEAN a capital letter mark—‘F’ for Framework rather than Fail. ASEAN thinks it’s about to get something Formal from China. Back in November 2002, ASEAN and China agreed on the Declaration on the Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. After 15 years of negotiation, still no Code, but apparently a Framework is a further step.

No ironic laughter, please, this is interesting—although if the Framework is the new staging point, the Code could take another 15 years. The significance is that ASEAN is in the game and is able to extract something formal from China.

Bear in mind that China’s hardheads still lament the concession to ASEAN centrality involved in that 2002 Declaration. The hard-line view is that Beijing should’ve stuck firmly to dealing bilaterally and separately with other claimants in the South China Sea in order to crush them one by one, never conceding that ASEAN had a right to be at the table.

15 years of negotiation hasn’t achieved a Code of Conduct. And it certainly hasn’t prevented China’s burst of muscular castle creation. What’s been achieved? Talking is always better than not talking, of course: jaw-jaw rather than war-war. Another achievement matters. At every moment in this process—I hesitate to say ‘at every step’—China’s had to engage with ASEAN, accepting the Association’s central place in negotiation on this key regional dispute.

Getting a Framework would be a fresh acknowledgement by Beijing of ASEAN’s role. Then the parsing can start to see if the Framework actually moves one jot beyond the promises in the Declaration 15 years ago. China is set to consolidate the gains made by its new giant sand castles, taking ASEAN acknowledgement of the new facts on the reefs in return for another bit of paper. ASEAN is after firmer promises about no more South China Sea castle-building. The core aim is getting a Framework that’ll mean no new terraforming. ASEAN would concede China’s recent creations in the South China Sea in return for the promise of no new castles. It’s not appeasement if the deal holds.

The recipe guarantees lots more ASEAN angst. Yet the evidence of its 50-year history is that ASEAN will both survive and thrive. China can constrain ASEAN, but it can’t crush it. The Association’s too useful to its 10 members and all the other players in Asia—even China.

ASEAN’s members are relatively weak and the Association must play a weak hand. And before going into the game, ASEAN must always look inward to balance the dynamic among its disparate members. The wonder isn’t ASEAN’s weak hand, but its long-game skill and the leverage it extracts.

All that angst over many decades has taught Southeast Asia a lot about the value of regionalism. One basic ASEAN lesson holds true: hang together or hang separately.

In November 2016, China announced that it had begun building its first floating nuclear power plant, a project called a ‘top priority’ that would boost Beijing’s ‘strong maritime power strategy’. In February 2017, a government spokesperson for science and technology confirmed that a floating reactor would be operational by 2020 to help fuel China’s offshore activities. While a floating nuclear power plant isn’t a new concept, China General Power Corporation (CGN) announced that it could be used for deep-water oil and gas development in the South China Sea. That idea, should it materialise, would dramatically alter the security landscape of maritime Southeast Asia, and would constitute a serious provocation against ASEAN claimant states. Nuclear power plants, floating or otherwise, require security, safety and safeguards. Those requirements would provide justification for Beijing’s further militarisation of the disputed sea, in turn strengthening its illegal presence and claims in the area.

Chinese installations on its artificial islands are currently powered mainly by diesel generators, supplemented by limited solar and wind power. According to the Global Times, Beijing will deploy floating nuclear power plants in the South China Sea by 2020. CGN reports that China’s construction of several 200 MWt small modular nuclear reactors for maritime use, codenamed ACPR50S, are for the supply of electricity, heat and desalination on far-flung islands and for offshore oil and gas exploration. Significantly, part of the budget for the effort comes from the military.

There are several reasons why these deployments should be blocked before they are yet another fait accompli. First, nuclear power plants would justify further militarisation of the area. Any nuclear reactor, on land or the sea, has to be protected. Since maritime Southeast Asia is a hotbed of piracy and other transnational crime, Beijing would be justified in increasing its military and paramilitary presence in the contested South China Sea. The need for securing nuclear reactors could provide an excuse for the Chinese to deploy even more highly armed Coast Guard vessels, and even PLA Navy ships, in addition to radar and weapon systems on artificial islands.

Second, stationing floating reactors within other nations’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) is illegal. Most of those areas fall under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea-mandated EEZs of littoral ASEAN states. Under section 1 of UNCLOS’s Article 56, and according to the July 2016 ruling of the Arbitral Tribunal constituted in The Hague, only ASEAN littoral states have legitimate EEZs that confer “exclusive” sovereign rights over resources around the Spratlys, and can exercise jurisdiction over activities of foreign entities in the area. And, while freedom of navigation in coastal states’ EEZ is guaranteed under UNCLOS, stationing vessels, such as floating reactors, in another country’s EEZ and continental shelf is a different matter.

Finally, nuclear power plants would provide China an instrument to strengthen its presence in disputed waters and to fence off a body of water considered to be the ‘throat of the world.’ Since floating reactors would likely be deployed to power China’s military installations on its artificial islands, the extra energy would boost the coverage and reach of the PLA’s radar and missile systems in maritime Southeast Asia in ways that couldn’t be done through diesel, solar and wind energy sources. There are also hints that China will declare an Air Defense Identification Zone over the South China Sea once it completes its buildup in the area. Nuclear reactors could provide the Chinese the capability to do so. In addition, the presence of nuclear reactors would boost China’s strategic deterrent, as any armed conflict could lead to nuclear meltdown in an important trade route and sea-lines of communication.

It’s time for Washington to be proactive and forward looking in crafting its Asia policy. America has been largely reactive to events happening in the region over the past few years. From Pyongyang’s nuclear activities to Beijing’s island building, disruptions in Asia’s strategic balance have caught Washington off guard. In essence, these disruptions have become a fait accompli, as nothing tangible, short of war, could be done to reverse them.

The Trump administration should anticipate the possibility that China will deploy nuclear reactors in the South China Sea. That would encourage Washington to develop a strategy to not just cope with the scenario after the event, but also to deter or prevent it from happening.

US leadership is critical. Washington should lead discussions on preventive diplomacy, rally regional public opinion against the issue of floating nuclear plants in an area rich in marine biodiversity, support ASEAN claimants’ call for an effective and binding code of conduct that includes provisions against the presence of nuclear materials on disputed domains, and significantly increase the cost that proceeding has to China’s reputation. Collectively, those actions could compel China to publicly disown the idea.

A successful deployment of nuclear reactors in the South China Sea would be a game-changer. It would dramatically alter the strategic calculus in maritime Southeast Asia to the detriment of the rule of law and of America’s position in the region. The US, its Asian partners and allies, and ASEAN have a strong interest in preventing that from happening.

Recently, a senior Vietnamese official asked Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Phnom Penh if negotiations with ASEAN on a South China Sea Code of Conduct (COC) would be completed by the end of the year. Mr Wang and his officials laughed it off, a Southeast Asian diplomat told me. A Vietnamese observer said he felt sorry for ASEAN. ‘They are just using the code of conduct to buy time.’

Chinese cynicism about the COC belies apparent progress. In August 2016—a month after the historic Hague ruling on Manila’s case against Beijing—ASEAN and China agreed on a hotline for maritime emergencies and a joint declaration applying the Code of Unplanned Encounters at Sea to the South China Sea. Last month, Mr Wang said a draft COC had been completed. China will host a meeting with ASEAN in May to come up with a preliminary agreement on a COC framework.

It’s important to note that China’s apparent willingness to accelerate talks on the code comes after 15 years trying to turn the 2002 Declaration of the Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) into a COC. But even if China and ASEAN agree on a COC, questions will remain over its effectiveness.

First, it’s not certain what geographical area the COC would cover. Neither is it clear if there’d be a punitive element in it. Second, China uses the COC to deflect criticism over its reclamation and militarisation of maritime features. The most recent effort to push ahead with the COC came a month after the Hague ruling.

The issue is that China is against the idea of a COC and it believes other claimants have not been adhering to the DOC. Speaking to Singaporean journalists in 2012, then-vice foreign minister Fu Ying charged that there was little point in forging ahead with a COC ’when the DOC is not faithfully observed.’ (no matter that China has ignored the fact that its activities in the South China Sea since 2013 far exceed those of the other claimants). Likewise, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in 2014 that China was open to launching discussions on the COC if there was full compliance with the DOC by all parties.

At best, the COC would only put a brake on China’s extensive reclamation and militarisation. No one disputes that ASEAN’s provided much-needed stability and prosperity in the region. But its effectiveness at dealing with ‘hard’ security issues such as the South China Sea, is being challenged. That goes back to 2102 when ASEAN failed to issue a communique on Beijing’s activities in the South China Sea. China was seen to have influenced Cambodia, the ASEAN chair, to stop the release of a statement, underscoring Beijing’s willingness to use friends within ASEAN to achieve its goals.

Indonesia, the putative head of the grouping, appears to have turned inward. Recently, a senior Indonesian official told a group of scholars and businessmen that Jakarta deemed President Donald Trump’s approach to China and the South China Sea to be ‘critical’. But he cautioned that Indonesia would adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach, instead of taking the lead on the disputes. Last month, Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Panjaitan said Indonesia did not envisage joint patrols in the South China Sea with Australia.

Singapore, which has taken an even-handed approach to the South China Sea disputes, stressing the need to comply with international law, came under pressure from China which held nine Singaporean infantry combat vehicles in Hong Kong last year. No wonder, attention has turned to the Trump administration which expressed support for allies such as Japan and South Korea, the adoption of a harder approach towards China and a plan to build up the US Navy.

But by killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Trump has kicked out a key pillar of America’s presence in the Asia-Pacific. Lastly, there seems to be little or no policy innovation when it comes to pushing back China in the South China Sea. If the Obama administration suffered from paralysis from analysis—over-thinking Chinese responses to US actions in the South China Sea—the Trump administration’s paralysis stems from a lack of analysis. Hundreds of positions in the State Department and Pentagon remain unstaffed.

Washington needs to establish a red line at Scarborough Shoal which China seized from the Philippines in 2012. It was reported last month that China will begin work on an environment monitoring station there. The fear is that China will start dredging, followed by militarisation, thus creating a strategic triangle connecting Woody Island, the Spratlys chain and Scarborough Shoal that would dominate most of the South China Sea.

Four years of talk about international law and the need for a rules-based regional order has not stopped Beijing’s building projects there. Earlier this month, it was Trump who enforced Barack Obama’s 2012 red line in Syria, by launching cruise missile attacks at a Syrian airfield which had carried out a chemical gas attack. Given China’s show of strength in the South China Sea, it’s time for Donald Trump to declare of Scarborough Shoal: ‘You shall not pass.’

Writing recently about Malcolm Turnbull’s decision not to seek ratification of an extradition treaty with China, the journalist Bernard Keane didn’t think it would affect the government’s political position: ‘For a start, it was in foreign policy, an area voters couldn’t care less about’.

He’s probably right. Apart from periods when Australian citizens feel their security threatened by war or terrorists or uncontrolled arrivals by boat, or when they develop an uneasy sense that their leaders are not up to the task of managing the alliance or the neighbourhood, foreign policy in this country has been the preserve and preoccupation of a small elite of politicians, officials, commentators and academics.

Australians have always regarded foreign policy suspiciously. We only got around to ratifying the Statute of Westminster, which established beyond doubt our sovereign identity in the world, in 1942, as Japanese forces headed towards our shores. We were much later coming to it than comparable countries such as Canada and South Africa.

More often than not, in the years that followed, foreign policy has played second fiddle to defence or national security policy. It sits uncomfortably with our national image. It seems vaguely unpatriotic. The stories it tells of lengthy negotiations and backroom deals in distant conference rooms, whatever the value of the product, are hardly the stuff of national mythmaking.

Effective statecraft has many other dimensions, of course—a strong economy, a capable defence force, robust institutions, a resilient society. The role of foreign policy within this broader construct is to expand the space available to the nation state to operate in the international system and maximise the options available to expand its interests and support its values.

It exists at both the macro and the micro-level, embracing fundamental choices like the decision to form an alliance with the United States and the day-to-day efforts of our ambassadors in Mexico or Myanmar to identify points where Australian interests can be pushed or the international positions of our two countries aligned.

Despite the public caution, it turns out that Australia has been quite good at foreign policy over the past 75 years. The evidence is around us: Australia is a secure and prosperous country, largely on good terms with our neighbours, with a solid alliance with the most powerful country in the world, and a productive relationship with China, the most important of the rising states. We have been able to exercise influence at the global level when we have needed to.

Now, however, our policymakers face challenges greater than any I can recall. The post-war global order, established in the Allied war aims set out in the Atlantic Charter, was globalising in its objectives. The institutions of the United Nations and Bretton Woods gave it form. The technologies of the information revolution reinforced it.

But Brexit and the election of Donald Trump are manifestations of a protectionist, counter-globalising mood that is appearing in different manifestations all over the world. In Russia, Japan, China, India and Turkey strongly nationalistic leaders have taken power. Closer to home, President Duterte in the Philippines shows Trump-like characteristics, and President Widodo has a less cosmopolitan worldview than his predecessor in Indonesia.

The empirical data on trade and investment flows, on treaty making and manufacturing point in the same direction. Global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was down 13 percent in 2016. Growth in the volume of trade is reducing and values are declining across all markets and product sectors. Non-tariff barriers are rising.

Each of the three strands woven through the foreign policies of every Australian government since the Second World War—an alliance with a great and powerful friend, engagement with the region around us and support for a global order in which the rules, whether of trade or of war, are known, and which we have played a part in setting—is coming under strain.

In this uncertain world foreign policy, pushed to the margins by geo-economics during the 1990s, and by national security concerns after the turn of the century, will find its central place again.

That’s because, better than other dimensions of statecraft, it can deal with ambiguity and uncertainty. It can pick its way through issues ranging from the melting of the Antarctic ice sheets to Donald Trump’s ego. Its sober and calculating traditions of reciprocity will find fresh relevance in what is shaping up as a more transactional world.

If President Trump succeeds in his efforts to cut the diplomatic and aid budget of the State Department by nearly 30 percent we will see a consequential test of whether foreign policy matters.  More than 120 retired US three and four-star military officers have written to the Congressional leadership arguing against the proposed cuts on the grounds that ‘elevating and strengthening diplomacy and development alongside defense are critical to keeping America safe’.

The generals are right.