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Immediately following the 26\u201329 April ASEAN Summit in Manila, many Southeast Asia-watchers were disappointed, but not altogether surprised, when the official statement<\/a> omitted the 2016 UNCLOS Tribunal ruling, as well as references to \u2018land reclamation\u2019 and \u2018militarization\u2019 (which were in the draft<\/a> version). It did note the operationalisation of the Guidelines for Hotline Communications for senior officials during crises as well as the application of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea in the South China Sea. The Statement also heralded the possible completion of a framework for the Code of Conduct by the middle of this year.<\/p>\n This recurring pattern of passive stance and false progress is all too familiar. Since 2012, when Cambodia impeded ASEAN\u2019s ability to produce a joint statement, analysts whose view of the sub-region has been limited to headlines have precipitously focused their gaze on the group’s meetings and summits, scouring communiques and parsing out sentences for anything related to the South China Sea (what one analyst dubbed \u2018ASEANology<\/a>\u2019). And every year, those wanting to see the Association take a stronger position vis-a-vis China are disappointed (see a graded comparison of ASEAN’s South China Sea statements here<\/a>).<\/p>\n But rather than rehash the \u2018glass half full\/half empty\u2019 debates, perhaps we should ask whether the strategic lens through which we view ASEAN is muddied or skewed. After all, that lens may be as, if not more, important than the events themselves. The \u2018ASEANology\u2019 trend in that regard indicates the growing prominence of a US\u2013China lens, where any developments in the region are measured by whether they benefit one of the two major powers at the expense of the other. In other words, a US\u2013China lens views Southeast Asia as nothing more than a battleground for Washington and Beijing in their strategic competition with each other.<\/p>\n China’s increasingly hegemonic behaviour\u2014whether in the South China Sea or in its recent heavy-handed approach<\/a> to enforcing the One China Policy\u2014has rapidly changed the region\u2019s strategic landscape. And America’s lacklustre military and political response has perhaps further cemented the regional dynamics into an overarching US\u2013China trajectory. But a US\u2013China lens cannot help us grasp the nuanced regional dynamics in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n For one thing, ASEAN’s trajectory is too complex for a single South China Sea yardstick. There’s a reason why the issue only occupies two paragraphs out of 126 in the recent Chair’s Statement. Focusing on the South China Sea alone ignores the dozens of policies and programs ASEAN\u2019s been developing or aims to achieve in a wide-range of issues, from IUU fishing to infrastructure connectivity, human rights and regional economic architecture.<\/p>\n Further, while analysts believe that ASEAN centrality is tied to the South China Sea, regional governments put more stock in the group’s ability to implement its three-pronged ‘ASEAN Community’ project as critical to its ability to shape the regional architecture. As a senior Singaporean diplomat said during the 2016 Shangri-La Dialogue, \u2018The South China Sea is only the flavour of the month\u2014a very strong one, but not a permanent one.\u2019<\/p>\n Additionally, a US\u2013China lens subsumes Southeast Asian interests and concerns to the strategic calculus between Beijing and Washington. Put crudely, the strategic value of Southeast Asia in Washington is then measured by how and when ASEAN stands up<\/a> to China in the South China Sea, while Beijing\u2019s concern is whether regional states are westernised<\/a> or belong in Washington’s camp\u2014the only conceivable reason they might criticise China\u2019s policy on the South China Sea.<\/p>\n Needless to say, such narratives ignore regional states’ interests while amplifying the strategic asymmetries between the US and China being imposed upon Southeast Asia. They could also draw other regional states into the fray. Australia’s position on the South China Sea, for example, is often judged critically<\/a>, including by Beijing, because it\u2019s perceived as toeing the American line. Similarly, others have criticised<\/a> Indonesia’s position on the South China Sea for being too soft on China at the expense of ASEAN.<\/p>\n This magnetic centripetal force of the US\u2013China dynamic further obscures the domestic political considerations driving Southeast Asian leaders. In fact, one of the biggest drawbacks of a US\u2013China lens is its assumption of the primacy of geopolitics\u2014that states should do what their geopolitical interests require them to do. But as we\u2019ve seen in recent years, domestic politics reigns supreme behind the balancing acts of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam, among others, in their engagement with China and the US.<\/p>\n A deeper, more nuanced understanding of ASEAN and Southeast Asia is essential for regional stability in the Indo-Pacific. Adopting a US\u2013China lens, consciously or not, will make it harder for us to contribute to that understanding as it skews our ability to view the region within its own terms and hinders our capacity to craft the appropriate strategic policies accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Immediately following the 26\u201329 April ASEAN Summit in Manila, many Southeast Asia-watchers were disappointed, but not altogether surprised, when the official statement omitted the 2016 UNCLOS Tribunal ruling, as well as references to \u2018land reclamation\u2019 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":31743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[189,52,467,471],"class_list":["post-31738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asean","tag-china","tag-multilateralism","tag-south-china-sea"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n