{"id":22885,"date":"2015-10-14T14:30:14","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T03:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=22885"},"modified":"2015-10-13T14:53:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T03:53:28","slug":"australia-and-asean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-and-asean\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia and ASEAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"6791633856_0e81ff54d1_z\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Graeme Dobell and Matt Davies have both written engaging contributions respectively for and against Australia\u2019s possible future membership of ASEAN. I\u2019m grateful to Graeme for presenting so cogently<\/a> the arguments for Australia\u2019s seeking admission. But Matt reminds us<\/a> of the difficulties involved\u2014difficulties that Graeme\u2019s most recent post<\/a> on the topic seems to acknowledge, though he clearly still has more to say on the subject. Personally, I believe Australia should be trying to strengthen its relationships with key Southeast Asian states. But I\u2019m unconvinced we have to join ASEAN to do that. We already have a close working relationship with ASEAN. And, I suspect our entreaties to Southeast Asian partners for closer strategic relationships are probably more credible if our motives are pure\u2014that is, if we\u2019re not simultaneously mendicants for admission to ASEAN.<\/p>\n

As with most big questions related to strategic policy, it pays to come at this one from an understanding of Australian interests. What does Australia want from Southeast Asia? Good neighbours, certainly\u2014and a shared sense of community is the foundation stone of a peaceful, interactive sub-region. We also want good trade relationships with regional states, a shared willingness to invest political and economic capital in addressing common challenges, and a stronger, more developed and more resilient sub-region. But there\u2019s something else we want too, and it\u2019s perhaps the most important of all our interests. We want a Southeast Asia that\u2019s a positive contributor to a stable, liberal, prosperous Asian security order.<\/p>\n

What do the adjectives stable, liberal and prosperous mean in that context? \u2018Stable\u2019 means we strive for an environment where guns are largely silent and where military budgets can be kept at small percentages of rapidly-growing GDPs. \u2018Liberal\u2019 means an order that\u2019s inclusive and open and characterised by laws and rules; it doesn\u2019t mean that all regional governments have to be democratically elected, though naturally Australia hopes that more will adopt that form over time. And \u2018prosperous\u2019 means an order in which all boats can rise, an environment in which development is a shared priority.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been the beneficiaries of such an order in the past and hope to continue our good strategic fortune in the future. But as US relative strategic weight in the region ebbs, and as we slide towards an Asia of skewed multipolarity, we\u2019re hoping to see emerge a stable, liberal, prosperous strategic order that turns less on US centrality. Obviously the US is going to remain a strong player in the region for many years. But the US-centred order we\u2019ve enjoyed in the past is buckling. So Australia\u2019s looking for new sources of inputs to that order. Former Prime Minister Abbott\u2019s interest in Japan, for example, seemed to derive from a belief that a regionally-engaged Japan would be an important contributor to such an order.<\/p>\n

Still, Asia\u2019s a big place. A more engaged Japan\u2014even a more engaged India\u2014wouldn\u2019t offset a deficit of strategic leadership in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia needs to find its own local champions. We should aspire to work with those emerging players to help foster the notion that a sub-regional power core does exist in Southeast Asia, one that is a positive contributor to a stable, liberal, prosperous security order. We want an optimistic, future-oriented Southeast Asia. In the vernacular of the film Tomorrowland<\/em>, we want a Southeast Asia that feeds the right wolf.<\/p>\n

I doubt ASEAN can be the vehicle for achieving that. While it\u2019s been a useful institution for building regional resilience, it\u2019s typically been a responsibility-diffuser rather than a responsibility-enhancer in strategic terms. It was built for a different purpose\u2014to strengthen intra-regional linkages in Southeast Asia. As such, it moves at the speed of its slowest members. It\u2019s reluctant to adopt regional positions on contentious issues. It finds it hard to point the finger of blame even in relation to overt transgressions. And\u2014especially noticeable in these transformational times\u2014its members don\u2019t share a single strategic vision of the regional future. As Donald Emmerson recently observed, if US\u2013China strategic rivalry were to escalate, ASEAN could easily split into two camps\u2014the China-defiers and the China-deferrers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our joining the organisation wouldn\u2019t change those characteristics. So, horses for courses: we\u2019ll probably get better mileage in relation to our current strategic ambitions to work with a more limited number of key players, like Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. After all, not all Southeast Asian countries want to be players in the bigger geopolitical matrix. Of those that do, not all share our goal. Let\u2019s work with those who do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graeme Dobell and Matt Davies have both written engaging contributions respectively for and against Australia\u2019s possible future membership of ASEAN. I\u2019m grateful to Graeme for presenting so cogently the arguments for Australia\u2019s seeking admission. But …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":22886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[189,52,467,25,31],"class_list":["post-22885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asean","tag-china","tag-multilateralism","tag-southeast-asia","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAustralia and ASEAN | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-and-asean\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Australia and ASEAN | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Graeme Dobell and Matt Davies have both written engaging contributions respectively for and against Australia\u2019s possible future membership of ASEAN. 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