ASEAN: Agnostic on the Free and Open Indo-Pacific

ASEAN’s attitude toward the “free and open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) concept can at present best be described as agnostic. This is understandable since the idea of a free and open Indo-Pacific still awaits a clearer definition. The United States, Japan, India, and Australia do not as yet have a common understanding of the concept or how it will be implemented, beyond their security concerns about China and a desire to present an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This is too narrow a basis to attract wider support. ASEAN members have their own anxieties about China, but at the same time, given China’s economic weight, are wary about anything that smacks of “containment,” particularly at a time when China appears more cooperative about negotiating a code of conduct for the South China Sea.

This was evident at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers retreat held in Singapore from February 4-6, 2018. The FOIP concept was discussed, but in the absence of clarity about what the it really meant, the talks were desultory and inconclusive. Indonesia argued that unless ASEAN came up with its own ideas about FOIP, the new concept could erode ASEAN centrality. Indonesia, however, was unable to clarify its own thinking on FOIP.  Indonesia produced a discussion paper overnight, but it provided no greater illumination. The chairman’s press statement made no mention of FOIP.

FOIP was again discussed at the ASEAN-Australia Summit held in Sydney on March 17-18. Indonesia reiterated concerns about ASEAN centrality, while Thailand stressed that FOIP should be inclusive. Australia was aware that FOIP must incorporate cooperative as well as competitive elements but did not seem to have an internal understanding on the balance between the two elements. There was no progress in clarifying, let alone reaching consensus on, the concept. The “Sydney Declaration” issued at the summit’s end made no mention of it.

Indonesia hosted a Track 1.5 workshop to further discuss the concept at the end of March 2018.  But the workshop brought ASEAN’s discussions on the matter no further forward; it only agreed to keep discussions going.

During the budget debate in the Singapore Parliament on March 1, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan posed three questions about FOIP and the BRI.

First: “Will these initiatives keep ASEAN at the core of the architecture of Southeast Asia or will they – wittingly or unwittingly – pull ASEAN apart and force us to choose sides?”

Second: Would these initiatives “facilitate trade, investment, infrastructure and connectivity”?

Third: Would these initiatives “support a world order based on international law?” He emphasized UNCLOS as “sacrosanct” for Singapore as an island and port.

Balakrishnan was, of course, speaking for Singapore and not ASEAN. Although different members give the concerns he articulated different degrees of priority, and hold them with different degrees of intensity, the three questions he posed nevertheless reflect those on the minds of all ASEAN member states. The metaphorical ball is therefore in the court of the advocates of FOIP and the BRI. To win ASEAN’s support, the United States, Japan, India, and Australia need to give greater clarity to the second question, and China needs to address the third more seriously.

The major powers seem to still be in the process of refining their definitions of FOIP. Meanwhile, relations between China and Japan, one of FOIP’s staunchest proponents, have experienced an improvement in atmospherics. Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid what appeared to be a successful visit to Japan and there has been agreement to exchange visits at the leaders’ level. Tokyo has softened its narrative to be less anti-China and stress ASEAN centrality, and has strengthened the economic component with country-specific lists of projects under FOIP. Of ASEAN’s dialogue partners, Japan and Australia are the most sensitive to ASEAN concerns and the latter has taken a broadly similar approach. For both however, the definition of FOIP is still a work in progress. India, from ASEAN’s perspective, does not seem too seized with the concept.

For ASEAN, as for all of East Asia, the phrase “free and open” immediately brings to mind trade. U.S President Donald Trump used the term “free and open Indo-Pacific” in his address to the APEC CEO Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam in November 2017. But if the occasion suggested free trade, this was belied by the entire tenor of his administration’s trade policy and the announcement of tariffs in March. For the United States, the term FOIP still seems linked to the more robustly competitive attitude toward China (and Russia) that was evident in both the National Security Strategy published in December 2017 and the summary of the National Defense Strategy published a month later. However, neither document offered much clarity about what FOIP would mean in operational terms. The Pentagon has hinted that more may be expected of allies and non-allies alike, though what precisely is unclear. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis may speak on the subject at the forthcoming Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore in June.

Indonesia is spot on in asking what FOIP means for ASEAN centrality. This is both a challenge and an opportunity. Southeast Asia lies at the connecting point of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and FOIP cannot succeed without ASEAN support. The United States, Japan, India, and Australia will, in all probability, take some time to come to a common understanding on FOIP. This gives ASEAN a window to shape the discussion and by doing so underscore its centrality.

In principle, and at the conceptual level, there ought not to be any necessary contradiction between FOIP and the BRI. One possibility is to take China’s “win-win” rhetoric about the BRI at face value and test Beijing by defining FOIP in such a way as to encompass rather than directly compete with the BRI. Despite its tough talk, Beijing is clearly worried about American trade policy and President Xi Jinping offered some (minimal) concessions at the Boao Forum for Asia in April. The BRI has already encountered some push-back and cannot succeed if the United States and China stumble into a trade war. Whether this approach will satisfy Trump’s competitive instincts, and whether ASEAN can move quickly enough to seize the opportunity, is another matter, a test of ASEAN’s ingenuity and ultimately, its true centrality.