Week 16 : Significant Regional Arrangements like ASEAN, European Union, SAARC, SCO

Significant Regional Arrangements like ASEAN, European Union, SAARC, SCO

The current ASEAN members have consistently experienced great power penetration, albeit in different form.3 Efforts to re-impose colonial rule after the Pacific War and the systemic struggle between East and West brought much conflict and pain to Southeast Asia during the Cold War period and until the early 1990s left the region divided into two camps: noncommunist ASEAN and the Indochinese states. Though relying in part on America’s huband-spokes system of bilateral alliances and its forward deployed military in the Asia-Pacific to maintain regional security, the Cold War also saw ASEAN countries pursue a ‘principle of regional autonomy’ (Acharya 2001: 51-56). However, Malaysia’s proposal for the neutralisation of Southeast Asia was rejected in 1971 in favour of the establishment of a politically less conspicuous Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN). Perceiving the United States as a benign power, ASEAN countries relied on Washington for their external security in ways that allowed these countries to concentrate on their national development. After the end of the Cold War, bilateral and multilateral relations with the US became more complicated as Washington exerted significant political pressure in relation to a number of issues (human rights, democratisation, neoliberal reforms, Burma). Given the geographical proximity and in some cases contiguity between ASEAN states and the People’s Republic of China, the overlapping territorial claims in relation to the South China Sea, as well as the impact of China’s reform policies, particularly in the economic realm, it is clear that dealing with great power penetration in the post-Cold War period has for ASEAN primarily implied managing the rise of China. Perceptions of China remain informed by significant suspicion, which is in part a result of China’s erstwhile interference in the domestic affairs of ASEAN states. Apart from uneasy ties with Indonesia (Sukma 1999), Beijing has also had difficult relations with Vietnam, albeit for different reasons (Chen 1995; Chang 1985). Many ASEAN countries are to this day not as comfortable in cooperating with China in relation to political-security and defence issues as they are with the United States (Tan and Acharya 2004). Seeking to avert both a repeat of great power intervention in their domestic and regional affairs as well as a future calamitous conflict between the United States and China, ASEAN countries have collectively pursued a multi-pronged engagement strategy directed at all major regional powers, including Japan and India. For instance, over the years ASEAN countries have consistently re-articulated their respect for a number of basic international norms, which they would also like all external powers to subscribe to in earnest. Specifically, ASEAN has advocated that the major regional powers should accede to the organisation’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), which commits signatories to peacefully resolving disputes and abiding respect for the principles of sovereignty and non-interference. While China was the first major power to sign the TAC in 2003, a step that marked a major reassessment of Beijing’s earlier troubling assertiveness over territorial claims, the United States has yet to do so. That said, the incoming Obama administration announced in February 2009 that Washington would begin the formal interagency process to pursue accession to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (Clinton 2009).