Strengthening ASEAN's Strategic Autonomy is conducive to regional stability and development
2022-05-17 04:43
Zhang Jie: Special researcher of the Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The second ASEAN-US special summit was held a few days ago. The joint vision statement issued at the meeting stated that ASEAN and the United States will carry out comprehensive cooperation in the fields of public health, economy, maritime security, climate change, people to people and cultural exchanges, and plan to formally establish the ASEAN-U.S. comprehensive strategic partnership at the 10th ASEAN-U.S. summit in November 2022. What is striking is that the statement is cautious in expressing sensitive issues in some regions, which is closer to ASEAN's position, reflecting ASEAN's long-standing strategy of balancing major powers and its adherence to neutrality. This shows that ASEAN still has strong strategic autonomy and has not been coerced by the United States into "choosing sides", which not only helps to safeguard ASEAN's own interests and development needs, but also plays a positive role in the development of Asia Pacific Regional Cooperation in the right direction.
ASEAN is not controlled by the United States
The special ASEAN-US summit is the highest level dialogue mechanism between the two sides. So far, it has been held twice. The first special summit was held in California from February 15 to 16, 2016, just after the establishment of the ASEAN Community and the upgrading of ASEAN-US relations to strategic partnership. The second special summit, this summit, was held in Washington to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of the establishment of ASEAN-US dialogue relations. It can be seen that compared with the annual ASEAN-US summit held in turn in the rotating presidency of ASEAN, the time and place of the special summit have significant political symbolic significance. Moreover, due to several changes in the duration of the special summit, it was held at a time when the United States increased its strategic competition with China, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continued, and the COVID-19 epidemic was still raging. The superposition of multiple factors further highlighted the political orientation of the special summit.
Although both the United States and ASEAN said in their official statements that the summit was intended to reaffirm the United States' enduring commitment to Southeast Asia, recognize the central position of ASEAN, and strengthen all-round cooperation. However, more analysts believe that the United States' efforts to promote the convening of the special summit are to demonstrate the United States' firm strategic determination to turn to "Indo Pacific", especially to win over ASEAN to join its dominant antagonistic group, which is a typical " Xiang Zhuang performed the sword dance as a cover for his attempt on Liu Bang's life—act with a hidden motive. ". The realistic motives of ASEAN include the hope that the United States can provide specific regional economic cooperation strategies; Take advantage of the opportunities exposed to the global spotlight to show strategic confidence and enhance international status. In addition, ASEAN countries have arranged a rich schedule of visits to the United States, including contacts with U.S. political, business and academic circles, in order to attract attention and investment from all walks of life in the United States.
It is worth mentioning that as of 2021, ASEAN has established dialogue partnerships with 11 countries, and it is not the first time that ASEAN leaders have come together to hold a summit in partner countries. In this regard, the ASEAN-US special summit is not "special", but more a diplomatic effort to practice the balance of major powers and maintain ASEAN's central position. It can be said that ASEAN has considerable strategic confidence. From the results of the meeting, ASEAN has not only dispelled the external doubts that participating in the summit itself is “choose sides” ", but also fully demonstrated its strategic autonomy.
Rebuilding ASEAN's strategic confidence in the special period
Prior to the summit, the special resolution adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Senate on May 5 and the "fact list" of the special summit released by the US White House on May 12 both expressed criticism of the ASEAN democratic process and human rights issues, and even asked ASEAN to "jointly condemn China", but these aggressive contents were not presented in the statement.
The statement issued by the meeting has more responded to ASEAN's concerns, and its statements on sensitive regional issues are consistent with ASEAN's consistent position. The statement involves the prevention and control of the COVID-19, strengthening economic ties, promoting maritime cooperation and security, supporting subregional development, promoting technological innovation, coping with climate change, maintaining peace and building trust and other cooperation topics in many fields, which are the focus of current Asia Pacific countries, including ASEAN. The relevant statements are not clearly targeted and exclusive.
More importantly, ASEAN has not been dominated by the United States on sensitive regional issues. Although the statement talked about the South China Sea issue, it did not touch the red line on the whole and did not use language with strong American color. On the issue of Russia and Ukraine, the statement did not criticize Russia by name, which is consistent with the previous neutral position of ASEAN. In addition, the statement also places the joint commitment of the United States and ASEAN to maintain Southeast Asia as a nuclear weapon free zone and the nuclear non-proliferation regime in the first place in the section on "maintaining regional peace", which shows that ASEAN's concern about the impact of the trilateral security partnership between the United States, Britain and Australia on regional security is taken seriously by the United States.
In fact, the shaping of ASEAN's Strategic Autonomy has experienced a difficult process from strategic anxiety to hasty response, and then to reshaping strategic confidence. Since 2016, the United States, Japan, India, Australia and other countries have introduced various "Indo Pacific" programs, emphasizing and reaffirming their support for the central position of ASEAN and a series of regional orders under the leadership of ASEAN. However, ASEAN's strategic anxiety has risen instead of falling, because ASEAN is aware that the intention of various "Indo Pacific" plans to contain China is very obvious, which will intensify the game of great powers and regional division, and ASEAN's central position will also be seriously impacted. To this end, ASEAN issued the ASEAN India Pacific outlook in 2019, trying to promote the regional strategies of various countries to achieve coordination and connectivity in Southeast Asia by strengthening the construction of the ASEAN Community and making use of the ASEAN led regional mechanism.
However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, ASEAN had to turn its attention to epidemic prevention and post epidemic economic recovery, and the ASEAN Indo Pacific outlook has not been effectively implemented. At the same time, after the Biden administration took office, it accelerated the upgrading of the "QUAD four sided mechanism" and the expansion of its membership, and established the trilateral security partnership between the United States, Britain and Australia. These actions not only exacerbated the regional arms race and threatened regional security, but also weakened the central position and unity of ASEAN. Specifically, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries publicly criticized the United States, while the Philippines, Singapore and other countries welcomed the trilateral security partnership between the United States, Britain and Australia.
After the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, despite the different positions of Southeast Asian countries, through coordination and efforts, ASEAN has made a collective voice twice without publicly naming or condemning Russia, which reflects the neutral position of ASEAN. In 2022, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand will assume the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN, G20 and APEC respectively. The United States continues to exert pressure to exclude Russia from these three important international dialogue platforms. In response, the foreign ministers of the three countries issued a joint statement on May 4, saying that they would invite all Member States, including Russia, to participate in the meeting. It can be said that this move has broken the illusion of the United States and cleared away the "hidden dangers" for the special summit in advance. Through the above game, ASEAN has gradually reshaped its internal unity and strategic confidence, and finally made the special summit develop in a direction more conducive to itself.
Balancing major country relations will be an important task for ASEAN
During the special summit, the United States promised to provide $150million in investment and cooperation projects to ASEAN countries, which was considered "extremely insulting". In addition, 60million US dollars among them is also clearly used to improve the law enforcement capacity of ASEAN countries to maintain maritime security and "combat illegal fishing", and the US Coast Guard will take the lead in implementation.
In this regard, international public opinion generally questioned the willingness of the United States to cooperate. As for what Campbell, coordinator of Indian Pacific Affairs of the National Security Council of the United States, said, it would be a dead letter to change the past focus on diplomatic and security cooperation with ASEAN into an all-round deepening of cooperation with ASEAN. And ASEAN can hardly expect the United States to have the will and ability to provide substantive support for the prosperity and development of the Asia Pacific region.
Not only that, Biden will go to Japan to attend the summit of the "QUAD four sides mechanism" and visit Japan and South Korea in late May. It is expected that the big power game in the Asia Pacific region will be more intense. In the future, whether the Asia Pacific region is a dialogue or a confrontation, a "decoupling" or a win-win situation will be a major challenge for countries in the region.
As a representative of small and medium-sized countries in the region, ASEAN expressed its position and demands at the special summit, adhered to the balanced strategy, and proved that it is fully capable of playing a "bridge" role in the dialogue between major countries instead of being a "Chess pieces" in the game of major countries. This is not only conducive to safeguarding ASEAN's own interests, but also to maintaining the stability and development of the Asia Pacific region.
东盟加强战略自主有利区域稳定与发展
2022-05-17 04:43
作者:张洁(中国社会科学院习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想研究中心特约研究员)
第二次东盟-美国特别峰会日前举行。会议发表的“联合愿景声明”表示,东盟与美国将在公共卫生、经济、海上安全、气候变化、人文交流等领域展开全面合作,并计划在2022年11月举行第十次东盟-美国峰会时,正式建立东盟-美国全面战略伙伴关系。引人注目的是,声明中对部分地区敏感议题的表述谨慎,更接近东盟立场,体现了东盟历来秉持的大国平衡战略与坚持中立态度。这表明,东盟仍具有较强的战略自主性,未被美国裹挟而被迫“选边站”,这不仅有助于维护东盟自身利益与发展需求,而且对亚太区域合作沿着正确方向发展起到积极作用。
东盟不被美国左右
东盟-美国特别峰会是双方最高级别的对话机制,迄今一共举行过两次。第一次特别峰会于2016年2月15日至16日在美国加利福尼亚州举行,当时正值东盟共同体成立、东盟-美国关系升级为战略伙伴关系之后。第二次特别峰会即本次峰会在华盛顿举行,目的是庆祝东盟-美国对话关系建立45周年。可见,相较于轮流在东盟轮值主席国召开的年度性东盟-美国峰会,特别峰会召开的时间与地点均具有显著的政治象征意义。不仅如此,由于此次特别峰会会期几番变动,召开之际正值美国加大对华战略竞争、俄乌冲突持续、新冠肺炎疫情仍然肆虐等,多重因素叠加,进一步凸显了特别峰会的政治指向。
尽管美国与东盟在官方声明中均表示,举行此次峰会意在重申美国对东南亚的持久承诺、对东盟中心地位的认可,以及加强全方位合作。不过更多分析认为,美国力促特别峰会召开是为了彰显美国坚定转向“印太”的战略决心,尤其是要拉拢东盟加入其主导的对抗性集团,是典型的“项庄舞剑,意在沛公”。而东盟的现实动机则包括,希望美国能够提供具体的区域经济合作战略;利用曝光于全球镁光灯下的机会展现战略自信,提升国际地位。此外,东盟各国安排了包括接触美国政界、商界、学界等丰富的访美日程,意在吸引美国各界的关注与投资。
值得一提的是,截至2021年,东盟共与11个国家建立了对话伙伴关系,而东盟领导人齐赴伙伴国举行峰会也并非首次。就此而言,东盟-美国特别峰会也并不“特别”,而更多是实践大国平衡、维护东盟中心地位的外交努力。可以说,东盟具有相当的战略自信,而从会议成果来看,东盟不仅打消了有关参加峰会本身就是“选边站”的外界质疑,而且充分展现了自身的战略自主性。
特殊时期下的东盟战略自信重塑
在此次峰会举办前,美国参议院外交委员会于5月5日通过的特别决议以及美国白宫在5月12日发布的特别峰会“事实清单”中,均表达了对东盟民主进程与人权问题的批评,甚至要求东盟“共同谴责中国”,但这些咄咄逼人的内容并未在声明中呈现。
会议发布的声明更多地回应了东盟关切,对地区敏感问题的表述与东盟的一贯立场相符。声明涉及防控新冠肺炎疫情、加强经济联系、促进海上合作安全、支持次区域发展、促进技术创新、应对气候变化、维护和平与建立信任等多领域合作议题,均是当前包括东盟在内的亚太各国的关注重点,相关表述没有明显的针对性与排他性。
更为重要的是,东盟在地区敏感问题上没有被美国左右。虽然声明谈及南海问题,但总体上没有触及红线,没有使用具有浓厚美国色彩的语言。在俄乌问题上,声明没有点名批评俄罗斯,与东盟此前的中立立场一致。不仅如此,声明还在有关“维护地区和平”的部分中,将美国与东盟维持东南亚地区作为无核武器区,并维护核不扩散制度的共同承诺放在首要位置,说明东盟关于美英澳三边安全伙伴关系对地区安全冲击的担忧被美国重视。
事实上,东盟战略自主的塑造经历了从战略焦虑到仓促应对,再到重塑战略自信的艰难过程。2016年以来,美日印澳等国纷纷出台各种“印太”方案,均强调和重申支持东盟中心地位以及东盟主导下的一系列地区秩序。但东盟的战略焦虑不降反升,因为东盟意识到,各种“印太”方案遏制中国的意图十分明显,这将加剧大国博弈和地区分裂,东盟的中心地位也会被严重冲击。为此,东盟于2019年出台《东盟印太展望》,试图通过加强东盟共同体建设,利用东盟主导的地区机制,推动各国的地区战略在东南亚实现协调与联通。
但是由于新冠肺炎疫情的暴发,东盟不得不将注意力转向防疫抗疫与疫后经济复苏,《东盟印太展望》并未有效落实。同时,拜登政府上台后,加快“四边机制”的升级与成员扩容,建立美英澳三边安全伙伴关系,这些举动不仅加剧地区军备竞赛、威胁地区安全,而且削弱了东盟的中心地位与统一性,具体表现为印度尼西亚、马来西亚等国公开批评美国,而菲律宾、新加坡等国则对美英澳三边安全伙伴关系表示欢迎。
俄乌冲突爆发后,尽管东南亚各国立场不同,但是经过协调和努力,东盟先后两次集体发声,没有公开点名和谴责俄罗斯,体现了东盟的中立立场。2022年,柬埔寨、印尼和泰国分别担任东盟、G20、APEC的轮值主席国,美国不断施压,要求将俄罗斯排除在这三个重要国际对话平台之外。对此,三国外长在5月4日发表联合声明,表示将会邀请俄罗斯在内的所有成员国参加会议。可以说此举打破了美国的幻想,提前为特别峰会扫除了“隐患”。通过上述博弈,东盟逐步重塑了内部统一和战略自信,最终使特别峰会朝着更有利于自身的方向发展。
平衡大国关系将是东盟重任
特别峰会期间,美国承诺对东盟国家提供1.5亿美元投资合作项目,这被认为“极具侮辱性”。不仅如此,其中的6000万美元还明确用于提高东盟国家维护海上安全和“打击非法捕鱼”的执法能力,并点名要由美国海岸警卫队牵头执行。
对此,国际舆论普遍质疑美国的合作意愿。至于美国国家安全委员会印太事务协调员坎贝尔所言,要将过去只关注与东盟的外交、安全合作转变为全方位加深与东盟的合作,恐怕只能是一纸空文。而东盟也很难指望美国真有意愿和能力为亚太地区的繁荣与发展提供实质性支持。
不仅如此,5月下旬拜登将赴日参加“四边机制”首脑会议并访问日本与韩国,料想亚太地区的大国博弈将会更为激烈。未来,亚太地区是对话还是对抗,是“脱钩”还是共赢,将是本地区各国面临的重大挑战。
作为地区中小国家的代表,东盟在特别峰会上表达自身立场与诉求,坚持平衡战略,证明其完全有能力不做大国博弈的“棋子”与“马前卒”,而是在大国对话中发挥“桥梁”作用。这不仅有利于维护东盟自身利益,也有助于维护亚太地区的稳定与发展。