October 1, 2024
JAKARTA – The South China Sea (SCS) is one of the hot spots in Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific. It is one of the most strategic and important sea-lanes in the world and is endowed with rich marine and other natural resources.
Recent years have witnessed an increase in incidents, and China’s assertiveness has attracted reactions from parties concerned with the security and stability of free and open access in the SCS.
Given such challenges, what can ASEAN do to manage security and stability in the SCS, if there is open conflict involving one or several ASEAN member states?
Before delving further into possible pathways for ASEAN, it is worthwhile to first identify the limits and constraints for any collective measure by ASEAN.
First, ASEAN is not a military alliance. This means that armed conflicts involving one or more members with a non-ASEAN party do not require the involvement of all ASEAN member states. Its members are free to individually support, be involved or distance themselves from such a conflict. ASEAN also has no requirements for the bloc to collectively provide political and/or military support to a member that is party to a conflict.
Second, ASEAN doesn’t have a common foreign policy or security/defense platform. Therefore, it is not necessarily easy for its member states to provide collective support for other members that are involved in an open conflict with non-ASEAN parties.
These are the two main limitations and constraints of ASEAN’s foreign policy and security/defense arrangements, which the bloc’s members deliberately and consciously put in place.
Although all ASEAN member states understand and accept these limitations, one can also surmise that such circumstances, where the regional grouping cannot even express collective political support to one or more members that are engaged in an open conflict with an external party, will severely erode the trust and sense of community among the bloc’s members, as well as ASEAN unity.
Given the above constraints, what are the diplomatic pathways for ASEAN to manage and de-escalate possible conflicts in the SCS involving one or more ASEAN member states?
First, ASEAN and China are currently engaged in a series of negotiations in drafting the Code of Conduct in the SCS (CoC). It should be noted that the CoC is nonbinding and not aimed at solving the root problems among claimant states in the SCS. Instead, the CoC’s main objective is to strengthen trust, maintain a conducive environment and establish mechanisms to manage potential conflicts among the parties in the SCS.
The anticipated CoC can be useful in managing conflicts if it has a dispute settlement mechanism and if it is legally binding. In particular, it must have a political mechanism to manage a serious incident deliberately provoked by one or more parties to the CoC.
Without such an arrangement, the anticipated CoC will have limited use in managing and defusing actual conflicts in the SCS, and will be confined to confidence-building measures. It should also be noted that the CoC will bind only ASEAN member states and China, unless it is opened to accession of other parties.
Second, all territorial and/or jurisdictional claims by claimant states that are also ASEAN members should be considered within the geographical footprint of Southeast Asia. China, as a non-ASEAN claimant state in the SCS, as well as many other non-ASEAN stakeholder countries have also acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC).
Therefore, the TAC is another possible pathway for ASEAN to manage any open conflicts arising from the overlapping claims in the SCS. Provisions in the TAC can serve as the basis for peaceful settlement of disputes among claimant states. However, the TAC is applicable only if all disputing parties agree to its application.
Third, Article 32 (c) of the ASEAN Charter entrusts the ASEAN chair to “ensure an effective and timely response to urgent issues or crisis situations affecting ASEAN, including providing its good offices and such other arrangements to immediately address these concerns”.
Based on this article, the ASEAN chair can play a significant role in mediating, managing and de-escalating conflicts affecting ASEAN member states and the bloc as a whole. In 2011, as the then-ASEAN chair, Indonesia played a significant mediation role to de-escalate the low-level conflict and skirmishes on the Thai-Cambodian border.
If open conflict erupts in the SCS, especially a conflict involving one or more ASEAN member countries, the ASEAN chair can be expected to take an active role in managing and de-escalating the conflict.
Fourth, any open conflict in the South China Sea will inevitably attract interest from external actors, including other global and regional powers, due to the waterway’s strategic security and economic importance. To channel and manage these external interests, ASEAN has two multilateral arrangements in place: the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Summit (EAS).
The EAS consists of almost all global major powers, except for the European Union. It is also the highest forum for making strategic decisions.
There is a strong basis for the EAS to contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the region, including in the SCS. In fact, the EAS issued the Declaration on the Principles for Mutually Beneficial Relations in 2011.
This declaration, among others, underlines the principles of renunciation in the event of the threat of or use of force against another state and the use of peaceful means settlement of differences and disputes. While the declaration is not legally binding, it nevertheless provides a good basis for the EAS to contribute to resolving any potential conflicts in the SCS.