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Southeast Asia at the center of
attention
By Stephen Blank
Unfortunately for Southeast Asia, it is becoming
once again a center of international security interest
and competition. The literal explosion of terrorism
throughout the region since 2001 both reflects and is a
cause of this process.
Southeast Asia clearly
figures prominently in al-Qaeda's targets of
opportunity, and as a result it has received much
greater attention from the United States in the field of
defense cooperation than had previously been the case
under the administration of president Bill Clinton.
Indeed, Washington is well on the way toward
re-establishing something resembling the chain of bases,
or at least of access to bases, that it had during the
Cold War. Certainly, Southeast Asian security now enjoys
a much higher place on the US agenda than it did under
the Clinton administration, a much more peaceful time in
the region.
The process by which Southeast Asia
has again moved to a position close to if not at the
forefront of international interest has been greatly
facilitated by the visible failure of regional security
institutions to live up to their billing. It was already
clear in the 1990s that something more than Association
of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) diplomacy was needed
to deal with the problem of China's "salami tactics" in
the South China Sea and Spratly Islands. And the
financial crisis of 1997-98 further underscored that
organization's weakness as it led to the collapse of
ASEAN's mainstay, the Suharto regime in Indonesia.
Similarly, the other institutions spawned by
ASEAN or that functioned in the region either failed or
have not yet lived up to their promise. While the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF) and Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) perform useful work, it is clear that
they cannot credibly deal with the internal and external
threats to security, however broadly defined, that we
now see throughout Southeast Asia. Tangible proof of
that weakness was this month's APEC meeting in Bangkok,
which was dominated by issues of hard security and
defense against terrorism rather than by any sustained
effort to grapple with trade and investment issues of
importance. This conference showed just how hard it is
for Southeast Asian governments to get their primary
concerns onto a major international agenda or to be
heard.
Because of that weakness of local
organizations and governments, a vacuum has been created
into which other states and agendas have protruded.
After all, this has not been an unexpected development,
since both nature and politics abhor a vacuum. But it
certainly has increased the international competition
for influence over both the international economic
relationships of Southeast Asia and over hard security
issues.
The single-minded US focus has led to a
renewal of its military presence and the discussion of
new modalities for cooperation between the US military
and host militaries. Australia has projected military
power into the Solomon Islands and announced a doctrine
of preventive crisis management for threatened areas.
India has sent its navy as far as the Straits of Malacca
to organize patrols against international piracy, which
has clear links with terrorist and other insurgent
movements. It also has shown its rising interest in
bilateral military relations with Vietnam and has
greatly expanded its commercial relationships with
Southeast Asia.
It also has been welcomed by
ASEAN members as a trading partner because of its own
growth and to counterbalance China.
This
consideration brings us to what is perhaps the most
overlooked but consequential aspect of this process,
namely the rise of China. The US's single-minded focus
on unilateral or bilateral military relationships has
deflected Washington from systematic attention to trade
and investment issues here. Consequently, major trade
initiatives that have been launched by Japan and, even
more, China have taken place in its absence, something
hitherto unthinkable.
China's explosive growth
is forcing Southeast Asia to see it as the new power on
the block and the economy that must be accommodated and
included, as it is going to be increasingly the flywheel
that drives regional if not overall Asian growth and
stability. Japan's anemic economic performance,
insensitivity to its neighbors, and failure to reform
precludes it from playing the role that many expected
15-20 years ago, ie the leader of an expected yen and
trading bloc. But there is ample evidence that the
external impact of China's growth in economics is and
will be felt most in Southeast Asia. Indeed, there are
signs that this is already the case. Certainly the
crisis of 1997 occurred in part because China's labor
costs are and were so much lower than those of Southeast
Asia and thus China cut heavily into their foreign
export markets. This is one major consequence of the
failure of the administration of US President George W
Bush to craft a coherent economic strategy for Asia and
its single-minded interest in defense and security.
Diplomats confirmed to the Far Eastern Economic
Review that several major economic initiatives are
taking place in the absence of the US. Rightly or
wrongly, the overwhelming importance of the "war on
terrorism" as the organizing principle of US foreign and
defense policy has led to a corresponding neglect of the
critical long-term economic, trade and investment issues
in Southeast Asia. China, on the other hand, not a
participant in the "war on terrorism", has adroitly
exploited its opportunities and is posed to expand by a
very considerable degree its influence in Southeast Asia
through business, trade and investment deals, all the
while maintaining a more accommodating or smiling
atmosphere in its foreign policy that does not entail
any compromise on its fundamental and vital interests.
This fundamental shift in the political,
strategic, and economic profile of Southeast Asia - the
weakness of local institutions and governments and the
rise of external influence on the area - may yet lead to
greater rivalry among Washington, New Delhi and Beijing,
and perhaps Canberra to a lesser degree. That is hardly
what the region needs, but it is also hardly the case
that a Chinese economic protectorate over Southeast Asia
is necessarily in its interests either. Thus, while we
can expect increased international competition, we
cannot yet see where all that rivalry will lead. But one
thing is already certain. Whatever the "war on
terrorism" might achieve, it is certainly clear that
Southeast Asia as a region is now sailing into waters
that are much more uncharted than has been the case for
almost a generation.
Stephen Blank is
an analyst of international security affairs residing in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
(Copyright 2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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on our sales and syndication policies.)
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