Which forces are really splitting Southeast Asian group's unity?

Global Times 

15th August 2012

 By Ding Gang 

Before the recent Phnom Penh meeting, the South China Sea issue was brought up and included in joint communiqués of previous ASEAN ministerial meetings.

Since 2002, when China and ASEAN agreed on the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties (DOC) in the South China Sea, the issue has been included in the joint communiqué of each year's ASEAN ministerial meeting. And these communiqués have emphasized every party's compliance with the DOC.

In the joint communiqué of 2009, only two articles were related to the South China Sea issue, and it wasn't frequently brought up in previous communiqués either.

However in the ASEAN ministerial meeting in 2010 in Hanoi where US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clearly declared that the US has a "national interest in freedom of navigation" in the South China Sea, four articles in the communiqué were linked to the South China Sea issue.


The key problem here is not whether to mention the South China Sea issue or not, but how to bring it up and what to mention about it.

During the recent Phnom Penh meeting, the Philippines sought to include the Huangyan Island incident into the communiqué, implicitly asking ASEAN to support its claims over the disputed waters.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong criticized the Philippines and Vietnam for taking the joint communiqué hostage, which led to the failure, for the first time, to issue a joint communiqué on a ministerial meeting of ASEAN's 45-year history.

Cambodia rejected the requirement by the Philippines and Vietnam to safeguard ASEAN unity. If ASEAN issued a communiqué siding with some individual member states over sovereignty issues and acted as a judge over the South China Sea issue, this would mean the whole organization positioning itself against China.

ASEAN now proposes to promote negotiations on Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea. But China never evades this question.

It has been supporting conducting negotiations over this issue, and making preparations together with ASEAN for related negotiations.

Would publicly discussing the South China Sea issue at the platform of ASEAN really facilitate the body's internal unity and collective credibility?

When we have a COC, not only China, but all claimants should abide by it. Over the past decade, it was not China that broke the DOC and went straight to occupy disputed areas.

If the DOC could be ignored by these states, how can we be convinced that a COC will have binding force? Which organization should be the arbitrator? If the US plays this role, can ASEAN still keep the situation under control?

Also, bilateral negotiations between claimants must be insisted on. The intervention of any third party will only further complicate the issue.

Some within ASEAN see this as a pivotal issue that damages ASEAN unity and prevents ASEAN and China from deepening their relationship, and are keen to find a solution as soon as possible. This is a fundamental mistake.

At the current stage, downplaying the South China Sea issue benefits both China and ASEAN. It's a better choice to temporarily shelve the issue since it cannot be solved any time soon.

This doesn't mean we should stop negotiations, but that we should prioritize strengthening ASEAN-China relations in other areas so as to build an atmosphere of mutual trust and enhance the chance of cooperation.

Negotiations should also begin on how cooperation can be consolidated in the South China Sea, which is the only way to a peaceful solution, and to an ASEAN-China security mechanism that ensures long-term peace in this region.

At the moment, the really disturbing issue is that some scholars either focus on the chance of a potential war in the South China Sea, or provoke ASEAN to put the issue on top of its agenda and collectively take on China.

Few spend time thinking about how ASEAN-China cooperation should be reinforced in the South China Sea.

According to Danny Russell, senior director for Asia at the US National Security Council, "China and the Philippines found themselves in a difficult situation, facing pressure not to back down and the zero-sum challenge of competing territorial claims threatened to escalate tension," as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald on July 21.

Russell believed that the two countries have created "a scenario of grave concern to all countries in the region." But it is such provocative comments that should be a serious concern of regional countries.

The author is a senior editor with People's Daily. He's now stationed in Bangkok. dinggang@globaltimes.com.cn