As the ongoing Ukraine war reverberates across geographies with far tangible impact on economies, fuel and food situation in the world, Southeast Asia in the whole Indo-Pacific region has, in particular, become an area which is basking under the glory of being wooed vigorously by the US and its democratic allies from Asia to Europe for its strategic importance.
New Delhi is going to host the first Special ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers’ meeting on June 16-17. This is being done to commemorate the 30th anniversary of India-ASEAN dialogue relations and one decade of India’s strategic partnership with the bloc. On the sidelines of Quad Leaders’ Summit in Tokyo on May 24, seven ASEAN members such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam joined the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Earlier, on May 12 US President Joe Biden held the first ever summit with ASEAN leaders in Washington, where more than $150 million was committed by the US to strengthen Southeast Asia’s climate, maritime and public health infrastructure.
This rattled China. To checkmate the US-headed Quad and Europe’s ever-increasing footprint in the Southeast Asian region, China announced holding face to face talks with the region’s leaders on the pending Code of Conduct (CoC) in the disputed South China Sea at the end of May.
China and five Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines—lay competing claims over the South China Sea. Disregarding the International Tribunal’s 2016 verdict, China lays claim over the entire South China Sea. But edgy Southeast Asian countries want to manage tensions in the resource-rich and strategically important waterway through the instrument of Code of Conduct.
As per China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian, consultations over the CoC were to be held at the end of May 2022 in Cambodia, the current chair of the ASEAN. Now into June, there is no update when China will hold negotiations over the CoC. For the last two years, there has been no discussions between China and ASEAN countries over the CoC and for this, Beijing cites the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason. Yet that doesn’t end China’s political game in the region.
Indonesia, one of the largest countries in the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, is being wooed feverishly by Beijing like a glamorous bride by pouring in investments in infrastructure projects and attracting a significant amount of Indonesian goods into the Chinese market. In the first quarter of 2022, total investments in Indonesia from China reached $1.4 billion, increasing 40 percent year-on-year. China has become the third-largest investor in Indonesia after Singapore and Hong Kong. In 2021, China invested $3.2 billion in Indonesia. Major Chinese investments in Indonesia include the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway Project.
On the trade front, as per data from the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC), the total trade between Indonesia and China reached $124.3 billion in 2021. Of this trade, the share of Indonesian exports to China was more than 60 percent. Further, to show that China attaches priority to its engagement with Indonesia, Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in Tunxi in China’s Anhui province on March 31 said: “China stands ready to work with Indonesia to build a community with a shared future …setting an example of solidarity and cooperation among developing countries for common development.”
This might have appeared as a music to the Indonesian Foreign Minister’s ears, but she was not too novice to understand China’s motive; Indonesia is not only highly significant archipelago country, strategically situated in between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, it is also considered as ASEAN’s anchor, enjoying warm relations with all the bloc’s members. China wants to capitalise on this enviable position Indonesia has among the ASEAN bloc.
It wants Indonesia as well as Thailand to be in the BRICS grouping. On May 30, China, as the BRICS rotating chair, held a separate session in a “BRICS Plus” format within the framework of the virtual BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting. Representatives of Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Senegal attended the meeting of BRICS Plus held in a virtual format.
It was seen as deft move by China, the Middle Kingdom that took wind out of sales of its rivals when on June 8, it participated in the ground breaking ceremony along with Cambodian officials for the extension of the Ream Naval Base, a strategically important military outpost on the Gulf of Thailand, which lies close to the Malacca Strait. Cambodia, the current chair of ASEAN, has denied that the Ream Naval Base will serve as a naval facility for China’s PLA, but the US and allies are not ready to subscribe to this argument of Phnom Penh, the ironclad friend of Beijing.
Ream Naval Base is also not far away from the South China Sea, which was recently in the news after an Australian surveillance plane was intercepted by a Chinese military plane when it was flying over the Sea, which is an arm of the western Pacific Ocean. Reacting over the incident, China’s Foreign Affairs Spokesperson said, “China will never allow any country to violate China’s sovereignty and security or undermine peace and stability in the South China Sea under the pretext of freedom of navigation.”
Experts believe that China’s aggressiveness in the region could be checkmated only when ASEAN in support with the US-led Quad and the AUKUS stops Beijing from enjoying any kind of unchallenged strategic independence in the region. However, this is not something about which China is not aware of.
Keeping this into account, Beijing prefers a separated rather than a unified ASEAN. A joint ASEAN with a unified strategic outlook will improve policy coordination among member states. It is believed that united Southeast Asian countries can bring a diplomatic mass and persuasive pressure to bear on China. Hence, China wants to engage with ASEAN members individually to maximize its military, diplomatic and economic leverage instead of engaging with the entire ASEAN members.
But thanks to the Ukraine war, the US and its friends are unsparing in their efforts to strengthen their reach and presence in the Southeast Asian region. The Quad has announced spending $50 billion on infrastructure build up in the Indo-Pacific region over the next five years; the European Union, under the Global Gateway Initiative has decided to spend Euro 300 billion till 2027 in Southeast Asia. Frightened by the gush of funds and diplomatic activities around ASEAN, China has decided to invest money and confidence in building a strong relationship with the countries of the Southeast Asian region. Yet the question is: Can China do this at the cost of its claim over the South China Sea? Because, it is this waterway of the Pacific Ocean, through which annually more than $ 5 trillion worth of shipments cross. Besides, it is full of mineral resources. In this background, it is feared that Beijing will think multiple times before reviewing its stand on the South China Sea.
–The writer is a senior journalist with wide experience in covering international affairs. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
–The writer is a senior journalist with wide experience in covering international affairs. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
