Decentering ASEAN in the Quad’s Indo-Pacific strategy

26 May 2021

China has been surprisingly busy in geopolitical terms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since early 2020, the People’s Liberation Army has occupied significant tracts of disputed territory along the Sino-Indian border; China’s Ministry of Commerce has slapped a large tariff on barley imports from Australia over Canberra’s call for investigations into the origins of the pandemic; Chinese aircraft and fishing vessels have increasingly intruded into Taiwanese airspace and Japanese waters respectively, and Beijing’s measures to bring Hong Kong to heel have raised the temperature in China’s relations with the West.

The other major powers of the Indo-Pacific — the United States, Japan, India, and Australia — appear to view this moment as another critical juncture in China’s growing ambition and assertiveness, echoing the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2009 when Beijing all but abandoned its ‘peaceful rise’ strategy. Coupled with a new administration in Washington that seeks to rejuvenate alliances, the stage is set for greater geopolitical tensions. Australia is arming, Japan is signalling a greater commitment to the defence of Taiwan, and India is committed to reversing China’s recent territorial gains in the Himalayas.

The Quad for its part can continue growing its footprint without maintaining the pretence of ASEAN centrality and the need to convince smaller regional states to irrationally become the tip of the spear aimed at China.

Most importantly, the four major powers have elevated their formal engagement through the Quad, with the first virtual summit of leaders taking place last month. The Quad has come a long way since its revival in 2017 and today embodies — to varying degrees — the strategic hopes of policymakers and analysts in all four capitals as a major-power coalition that can compete with China for influence and perhaps even contain its rise.

ASEAN’s dilemma

Not all actors in the region are sanguine about these developments. As a supranational regional organisation operating in the same geopolitical space, ASEAN is sceptical of the Quad’s intentions and impact. The dominant worry in Southeast Asia is that the Quad may bring about “a new cold war in Asia’s backyard”. At the same time, China threatens the territory and sovereignty of many ASEAN members. Having spent decades building an institutional architecture designed to preclude conflict through inclusion and neutrality, ASEAN is now on the horns of a dilemma, risking instability no matter which side it picks. The Quad is sensitive to these concerns and has repeatedly affirmed “ASEAN centrality” in its vision of the Indo-Pacific. Yet, dogmatic adherence to this principle without substance can only get both groupings so far. Neither ASEAN nor the Quad has truly articulated what ASEAN centrality would look like in a world where the Quad takes on an increasingly active role against China.

From the Quad’s perspective, ASEAN centrality seems little more than an empty slogan. Neither Japan and Australia’s vision of the Quad as anchored to their respective alliances with the US nor India’s vision of the Quad as a more inclusive grouping truly accommodates ASEAN as a central actor. India’s foreign minister simply said the quiet part out loud last year when he suggested that “the centrality of ASEAN to Asia is not what it used to be”. From ASEAN’s perspective, centrality is everything. It refers to the manner in which ASEAN has led regional initiatives on security and economic cooperation since the end of the Cold War by providing a multilateral platform for various countries, especially the US and China, to engage in dialogue. Talk is not cheap for ASEAN because it accompanies a set of interlocking institutions — such as the East Asia Summit, ADMM+, ARF, and now RCEP — that have enmeshed the great powers and enabled stability without hegemony. Arguably, the ASEAN way had until recently induced relevant states to prioritise diplomacy over the use of force. In this sense, centrality means a certain convening and agenda-setting power for ASEAN in regional affairs.

A world in which the Quad took ASEAN centrality seriously would therefore be one in which ASEAN acted as a leader on matters of security and economic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, with Quad members plugging into various existing institutions and forums. This is where the fundamental divide between the Quad and ASEAN becomes clear. ASEAN centrality would include China as a key participant in regional multilateralism aimed at cooperation and stability, an outcome that ill suits a grouping of major powers gearing up for a geopolitical contest with Beijing.

ASEAN’s strategic compulsions

ASEAN’s preference for integrating China into regional frameworks is not idealist claptrap. Rather, it reflects the extent to which Southeast Asian economies are deeply embedded in networks of trade, investment, and supply with China. In addition to being vastly outmatched in terms of military and economic capabilities, this embeddedness makes it impossible for ASEAN to try anything other than multilateralism to address China’s rise. Unfortunately, as the past two decades have shown, regional multilateralism has neither altered the goals of the CCP leadership nor deterred China from pressing its claims and interests. ASEAN’s strategic compulsions make it an unwilling and unreliable partner for the Quad. Ultimately, an Indo-Pacific in which the Quad operates without the presumption of ASEAN centrality would be in the interest of all parties. ASEAN can then continue to hold together and take a middle path, offering security cooperation to the Quad, economic cooperation to China, and institutionalised opportunities for diplomacy all around. The Quad for its part can continue growing its footprint without maintaining the pretence of ASEAN centrality and the need to convince smaller regional states to irrationally become the tip of the spear aimed at China.

And finally

This is not to say that relations between the Quad and ASEAN will be hostile or estranged. Rather, the Quad must understand that many Southeast Asian states would sooner learn to live with Chinese hegemony than provoke great-power conflict in their region. Quad enthusiasts point out that China’s actions will soon drive these states into the Quad’s arms (and this might well be true in a handful of cases such as Vietnam and the Philippines). But if the Quad pushes a China containment strategy too hard, it should be prepared to see many Southeast Asian states cling even more firmly to neutrality or even cast their lot in with China over the coming years.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Rohan Mukherjee is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale-NUS College, Singapore. The views expressed in this article are personal. Image credit: Wikipedia.