Even as ASEAN states become more dependent economically on China, this has not stopped them from pursuing closer defense and security cooperation with the US.

Endy Bayuni (The Jakarta Post)  Aug 31, 2023

PREMIUM

United States President Joe Biden’s absence from the ASEAN Summit in Jakarta next week speaks volumes about how the current US administration sees Southeast Asia in its overall Indo-Pacific strategy. ASEAN matters little, if at all, enough for Biden to skip the annual gathering, even though he will be in the neighborhood around that time.

Host Indonesia has made “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth” the tagline of its chairmanship of the group this year and this will culminate with a series of summits on Sep. 5-7, bringing together not only leaders of the 10 member states, but also of major powers including China, Japan, Korea, Australia and India.

Biden will be a conspicuous no-show. The White House last week confirmed that Biden will not be attending the ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, but he will be going to the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi on Sept. 9-10.

There is an earlier report that he planned to visit Vietnam as part of this Asian tour but this has not been confirmed. Vice President Kamala Harris will represent Biden in Jakarta.

Biden’s absence is also an indication that Washington is not too pleased with ASEAN, or some of its members anyway, for not being fully on board with his Indo-Pacific strategy that seeks to contain China’s power in the region and globally.

Given its strategic geographical location, straddling the Indian and Pacific oceans, Southeast Asia is an important link in Biden’s strategy, and given ASEAN’s lukewarm response, also its weakest.

Japan, South Korea, Australia and India are fully on board through some alliance arrangements. Some, but not all ASEAN states are already allies of the US. But ASEAN as a group is not aligned either with the US, or with China for that matter. This has irked Washington, and Biden’s decision to skip the ASEAN Summit could be taken as a sign of this displeasure.

ASEAN leaders have repeatedly said they should not be forced to choose sides. Living in the neighborhood, ASEAN countries have had to do a careful balancing act as the Sino-US rivalry intensifies.

China looms large in the region, not only militarily but it is also the largest trading partner and increasingly a major source of investment and development aid for most of the 10 member states.

The growing rift in the South China Sea, where some ASEAN states have territorial disputes with China, is not enough to convince them to throw their weight behind Biden’s containment policy.

ASEAN states, and Indonesia for one, still put their faith in diplomacy to help the region come out of this difficult predicament of being geographically located in the crossfire of the ongoing big-power rivalry.

Hedging is the name of the game, or in Indonesia’s diplomatic parlance often cited in the old Cold War, navigating between two coral reefs. This remains so as long as it is a cold war, not a hot one. Indonesia is deploying all its diplomatic capabilities, including economic and military diplomacy, some channeled through ASEAN, to ensure the region is not dragged into the Sino-US conflict.

Even as ASEAN states become more dependent economically on China, this has not stopped them from pursuing closer defense and security cooperation with the US. In fact, Indonesia’s defense ties with the US today historically are the strongest, evidenced by the number and scale of joint military exercises, and Indonesia’s massive procurements of weapons.

They are closer, but still not to the point of Indonesia joining any of the existing US security alliances in the region. Still, Indonesia’s military cooperation with China pales in comparison.

Individual ASEAN member states have done their part to help the US remain economically engaged in the region, even though it can never match the scale they have with China. Seven ASEAN member states are among 14 countries that joined the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework launched in May 2022. This is the only economic platform Washington has in the region after then-president Donald Trump ditched the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership which was signed in 2016.

As this year’s ASEAN chair, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has steered the group away from distracting conflicts, confrontations and power rivalries, internally and externally. Instead, he has set out an ambitious vision for the group, where some 20 years from now, ASEAN will be the epicentrum of global economic growth.

The ASEAN Summit and the East Asia Summit that follows, both in Jakarta next week, will be the occasion for Indonesia to let the world know the direction ASEAN wants to go, where the group will claim its place in the world 20 years from now.

ASEAN will pursue this irrespective of how the US views Southeast Asia. It would certainly help if Washington for once recognized ASEAN, or Southeast Asia, on its merits rather than treating it as a piece of the puzzle in stopping the rise of China. The US matters to ASEAN, but Washington should not take this for granted by not reciprocating.

Southeast Asians are forgiving lot and are known for their hospitality.

They will give VP Harris just as warm a welcome they would extend to Biden. It will be a challenge for her however to convince the ASEAN leaders how much the region matters to the US.

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Endy Bayuni is a senior journalist at The Jakarta Post.

He is Honorary Member of the Romanian Institute for Europe-Asia Studies - IRSEA

The article was first published in The Jakarta Post and is reposted here with the writer's permission

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position or view of IRSEA