China and member states of ASEAN are marking the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the China-ASEAN dialogue this week in Nanning, China. Held for the first time in a Chinese city, the China-ASEAN Commemor-ative Summit is living testimony to Beijing's rising (soft) power.
The history of China and its Southeast Asian neighbors during the Cold War years was one of both amity and animosity. While Beijing enjoyed close ties with Indonesia and Burma and provided strong support to its fellow communist regime in North Vietnam, it became estranged from many of Southeast Asia's non-communist states. Not surprisingly, many of them did not establish diplomatic relations with Beijing until the mid-1970s.
When China and ASEAN established their dialogue 15 years ago, Beijing had barely restored diplomatic relations with Jakarta, had begun to normalize relations with Hanoi and had just established diplomatic ties with Singapore. There were strong suspicions, as well as concerns among ASEAN member states, over China's growing power and intentions toward Southeast Asia.
Beijing's assertiveness in its claims to sovereignty over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, coupled with its ongoing military buildup and the occasional use of force in asserting its territorial claims, cast a shadow over the Southeast Asian states at a time of uncertain US commitment in the region, and provided fodder for the "China threat" thesis.
China-ASEAN relations have undergone significant changes since 1991, when the ASEAN foreign ministers' summit first invited China to become a dialogue partner. By moving away from enmity and suspicion, bilateral ties have been strengthened in the areas of politics, economics and security. In 1997, China and ASEAN established the annual summit mechanism (ASEAN+1) and in 2003, they signed the Joint Declaration of a Strategic Part-nership for Peace and Prosperity.
Beijing has made great strides in assuring ASEAN of its benign intentions by participating in the ASEAN Regional Forum and embracing multilateralism, signing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to manage territorial disputes, and acceding to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, becoming the first major power to do so.
Perhaps the most significant progress thus far lies in the growing economic ties. Two-way trade has been growing at a rate of 20 percent for the last decade to reach US$130.4 billion last year, from less than US$8 billion in 1991. Total ASEAN investments in China reached US$3.1 billion last year, while member states enjoyed a trade surplus of roughly US$20 billion.
In November 2002, China and ASEAN signed the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation. The two sides pledged to establish a free trade agreement within 10 years, first with the original ASEAN-6 by 2010, followed by the entire ASEAN-10 by 2015. Such an agreement would constitute a common market of 1.7 billion people with a combined GDP of between US$1.5 trillion and US$2 trillion.
Over the years, China and ASEAN countries have developed defense and security ties in a number of areas, ranging from high-level visits by military and defense officials to port calls, small-scale joint military exercises, defense equipment transfers, military educational exchange programs and multilateral dialogues by senior defense and military officers. In November 2004, the first meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum Security Policy Conference was held in Beijing.
China and ASEAN are also expanding cooperation in non-traditional security areas, including securing sea lanes of communication, anti-terrorism and anti-piracy concerns, ecological issues such as the Greater Mekong River project, the SARS outbreak, trans-national organized crime and money laundering.
Beijing's efforts to reassure its neighbors with the so-called new diplomacy have paid off in winning its Southeast Asian neighbors' confidence, although these efforts may not have completely erased all disputes between them. Within a decade, growing interdependence and skillful Chinese diplomacy have sustained a steady improvement in the comfort level between China and ASEAN, allowing Beijing to exercise a greater influence in the region.
In a way the Nanning summit is a crowning moment for China's growing soft power.
Southeast Asia has emerged as a region of growing strategic salience to the US. It straddles critical sea lines of communication, and hence its importance to the US in terms of freedom of navigation. The region has one of the world's major seaports (Singapore) and contains transit points which create opportunities for terrorist groups to sneak bombs to US ports or transport materials that could be used in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.
In recent years, the region has also been the focal point of potentially deadly diseases such as avian flu and pandemic influenza. It also contains a large Muslim population and the region's secular governments have for years had to deal with ethnic and religious extremist and terrorist groups. Furthermore, it is a vast market as well as production base for US multinationals. Consequently the perceived rise in China's regional influence has drawn Washington's attention.
The US retains strong political influence, economic clout and military prowess in the region. Its influence remains strong and deep rooted, as are its institutional arrangements with the region in terms of alliances, base access and visiting forces agreements. It maintains security alliances with Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. The post-Sept. 11, 2001, security environment has provided the opportunity for the US and a number of ASEAN member states to work out specific military cooperation arrangements that facilitate US operations in the region in both supporting the global war on terrorism and preparing for future contingencies.
Such ties are similar to the deliberate hedging strategies that ASEAN member states have adopted in securing their own vital interests in a region that is drawing growing attention from major powers because of its strategic location in the path of vital sea lanes and owing to its rising importance in the global war on terrorism and efforts to contain the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
What may constitute the biggest threat to long-term US interests lies in the economic field as China replaces the US as ASEAN's No. 1 trading partner and as China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) comes up to speed in the coming years and expands to the East Asian region to form the largest trading bloc in the world. But even here, the US still holds some important cards: technology, market share and investment. US-ASEAN bilateral trade grew by 12.4 percent last year to reach US$153 billion. US investments in ASEAN during 1995-2004, at US$42.3 billion, dwarfed China's US$1 billion.
But Washington does need to be more proactive and go beyond the rhetoric in truly recognizing ASEAN's critical place in US foreign policy. Specifically, it needs to change its current approach.
First, it should treat ASEAN as an important multilateral organization and de-emphasize its distinctly bilateral approach. This requires a positive attitude toward multilateralism and greater patience in accepting the ASEAN way of gradualism, consensus and non-confrontational settling of disputes. The planned US summit with the seven ASEAN countries who are also members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) prior to this month's APEC leaders' meeting is a good beginning.
Second, Washington's ASEAN policy is not, and should not be framed as, a zero-sum game in which Beijing's gains must been seen as Washington's loss. China does not have a Monroe doctrine for Southeast Asia. It is therefore particularly unhelpful, and indeed could be highly counter-productive, in presenting ASEAN member states a choice that they would find most difficult to make. Most of all, it could be quite an embarrassment for Southeast Asian countries if US officials publicly chastised China on their turf.
Indeed, while China may have gained influence in Southeast Asia over the last decade, it may not be at the US' expense. On a number of fronts, closer China-ASEAN relations could actually advance US interests in the region.
China's agreement to be bound by restraint on the territorial issue lowers the risk of military conflicts and hence major disruption of key sea lines of communication vital to the economic security of both the US and its important allies in the region, such as Japan, which depend on secure and stable supplies of raw materials and energy.
Third, the US needs to learn to apply non-military, non-confrontational means to address the challenges that the region is facing: fragile democracy, the need for good governance and accountability, uneven distribution of wealth, poverty and social problems that could provide fertile ground for ethnic and religious intolerance and terrorist activities. Indeed, US responses to the tsunami disaster last year have won widespread goodwill in the region. On the other hand, too much emphasis on pre-emption, a penchant for unilateralism, and the threat of force only heighten concerns among Southeast Asian states and could fan anti-US sentiments.
ASEAN states' shifting stances on the US' global war on terrorism are a good example. Most ASEAN member states, with the exception of Singapore and the Philippines, publicly oppose unilateralism and unipolarity, a clear reference to the US. Perhaps a good way to start is to take a page from Beijing's book of charm diplomacy. And this should be something that is easy to achieve, and would come at a relatively low cost.
In sum, Washington's approach must be strategic, comprehensive and proactive rather than piecemeal, passive and reactive. It is important to maintain solid bilateral relationships with its key allies and friends in the region, but the US should also begin to recognize the value, the growing role and the importance of ASEAN and should treat the regional grouping as such.
Yuan Jing-dong is director of research at the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies and associate professor of International Policy Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
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