Forum needs to focus on South China Sea
R Muthu Kumar
In 2023, ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) took a sensible decision with regarding to Myanmar. With Laos assuming the bloc’s annual rotating chairmanship for 2024, certain Southeast Asian officials became a little jittery at the thought of the region’s least diplomatically experienced and most hermetic government handling the group’s response to the crisis in Myanmar, a member of ASEAN.
However, at the ASEAN Summit in Jakarta in September 2023, it was decided that a troika of nations would assume responsibility for managing the crisis. Under this system, responsibility for ASEAN’s response will be shared by the foreign ministers of Indonesia (the 2023 chairman), Laos (the 2024 chairman) and Malaysia (the 2025 chairman).
With the powers rested with troika of nations, it would ensure sustainability in ASEAN policies. And it would bring some well-needed unity and compromise to ASEAN proceedings.
Laos plans to bring economic and digital development, as well as improving the external relations, to the forefront of the 2024 ASEAN Summit agenda under the theme “Enhancing Connectivity and Resilience”.
Unlike its previous experiences as chair in 2004 and 2016, 2024 may prove to be even more demanding as Laos is expected to lead ASEAN through another tumultuous year of challenges.
Laos has promised to keep ASEAN relevant by enhancing its resilience and promoting its centrality to overcome these challenges.
Laos wants to boost its standing and influence among major powers as it hosts and chairs meetings in all ASEAN-led mechanisms, including the East Asia Summit where the leaders of major powers including the US, China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, Russia, and New Zealand will gather in Laos’ capital Vientiane.
If ASEAN is genuine about neutrality amid the US-China Cold War, does it make sense for a Chinese ally Laos or an American ally the Philippines to hold the ASEAN chairmanship for a year? Can the troika system work out a solution for the Myanmar crisis? experts understands that the situation cannot change in one year. And the same holds true for many of the other problems ASEAN faces, including the South China Sea disputes, how the bloc engages in the US-China Cold War.
The current system allows the smaller states to advertise their local economy, especially tourism. As like Laos which is running the “Visit Laos Year 2024” campaign to coincide with its chairmanship. It will also help the occupying chairman to advance their geopolitical ambitions.
China’s status as a strongly rising economy, increased great power rivalry with the US, and the consolidation of power under China’s current President Xi Jinping. With increased tensions linked to “renewed Chinese assertiveness”, the South China Sea is “on the verge of becoming the most contested body of water in the world”.
South East Asian countries and Taiwan in the middle of last year objected to China’s version of its territorial map because of new boundaries that reach waters it claims in the South China Sea. China historically considers all territory in the South China Sea to be under its control, despite competing claims with a number of Southeast Asian states.
South China Sea has the potential to yield 130 billion barrels of oil, which if true would place the region second behind Saudi Arabia in terms of oil reserves.
It is also estimated that the South China Sea provides approximately 10 per cent of the global catch! All the wealth and trade route facility have made America and the Chinese leaders to take command and hence disputes have started to surface increasingly.
Chinese construction and militarisation has also accelerated in this region – again a big point of contention for American leaders. India too is closely watching these developments as it is very near to its neighborhood.
Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads over everything from the future of democratically ruled Taiwan to territorial claims in the South China Sea. Ties are still recovering after the U.S. downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon last year.
Most of these pinpricks and problems would be solved only through a powerful block so the troika-chairman system for ASEAN will be useful. With three chairs, it would prevent one from going rogue and conducting its own private diplomacy ostensibly on behalf of ASEAN. Responsibility for hosting and paying for the ASEAN events could be shared, which would ease the burden on national governments, especially the poorer ones. And it would allow ASEAN a better chance of showing much-needed proactive collective leadership, not just the bloc’s traditional reactive consensus decision-making.
While the USA is not directly involved in the South China Sea quagmire, its concern with the security of the sea-lanes and its intentions to solve the region’s problems have cautioned China to tread carefully in its plans to recover its ‘lost territories’.
US surveillance and military presence in this region is increasing the uneasiness of China. Thus ASEAN has to play an important role in ensuring that disputes in the South China Sea do not escalate to unacceptable levels.
But as tensions between China and the Philippines worsen in the South China Sea, ASEAN cannot continue to be a bystander. As a land-locked country, it is with keenness the world leaders are watching whether Laos would have the strength and intentions to make a difference on the South China Sea issue and make ASEAN’s relevance count.
