With a watchful eye towards China, the nations of Southeast Asia seem
receptive to America's charms, Luke Hunt reports.
The swing through Southeast Asia
by Hilary Clinton allowed the United States’ Secretary of State to champion the
impoverished and oppressed and challenge China whose overbearing reach is
causing political convulsions in the region.
She put relations with Laos on a
firmer footing,
becoming America’s highest ranked diplomat to visit the country in 57 years.
Clinton then pushed Vietnam to play a greater regional role, while
later in Burma she capitalized on an easing in U.S. sanctions, winning
applause from business.
Clinton
also announced Washington would provide Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia,
Thailand and Burma with US$50 million over next three years for health,
education and environmental programs.
In the aftermath of the Cold War
most of these countries found themselves politically relegated as The
Philippines and Thailand emerged as the frontlines of U.S. foreign policy in
the region but dynamics have changed sharply over recent years with China
flexing its muscles and vying for influence.
Against that backdrop, Clinton
flew into Phnom Penh where foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of
South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) were meeting with counterparts from around the
Asia Pacific and Europe at the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).
Topping the agenda was the Code
of Conduct (COC), an agreement first proposed 10-years ago aimed at
resolving any conflict around the resource-rich and strategically important
Spratly and Paracel islands.
About
half of the world’s trade sails through the sea lanes they straddle.
China claims the lot while Vietnam also has a longstanding claim over the
Paracels and parts of the Spratlys, where The Philippines has significant
traditional interests and sovereign rights.
Parts of the Spratlys are also
claimed by Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan.
The U.S. and China were poles
apart on the issue with Washington favoring expediency and arguments forged by
Vietnam and The Philippines that disputes around the remote island chains with
China should be resolved through a united front put forward by ASEAN.
Manila also insisted on a
communiqué mentioning the bloc’s concern over its recent standoff with Beijing
at Scarborough
Shoal which has taken relations between the pair to their lowest ebb
in years.
This
has not been to China’s liking which used its close relationship with Cambodia –
struck on the back of financial deals — to obstruct any agreement on the
document. It prefers the status quo with sovereign disputes dealt with on a
bilateral basis.
“It's a long, slow process and
one that appears to be fraught with dangers. The main hope is that China will
realize that acting aggressively as it did with the Philippines will create
some restraint among all the protagonists,” said Keith Loveard, a Jakarta-based
regional analyst with Concord Security.
He added that U.S. overtures to
Vietnam and the
use of Cam Ranh Bay would not convince the Chinese that it was in its
best interests to go too softly.
In October 2010,
Vietnam announced it would open up its deep water port at Cam Ranh Bay to the
world’s navies and merchant mariners following an upgrade. It was a
masterful political stroke, opening up the seaways, allowing the U.S. access to
its ports and putting Beijing on the back foot.
At about the same time, the U.S.
clearly outraged China by declaring that the sea lanes and unimpeded trade
through the Spratlys was in its national interests. Beijing
was irritated even further by U.S. President Barack Obama whose
administration announced a diplomatic realignment with Southeast Asia.
This made Cambodia’s role as
chair of this year’s summit all the more important. It attempted to introduce
“key elements” to the COC but refused to elaborate publicly on what they were.
Sources who saw the document
told The Diplomat that it lacked any new enforcement measures.
This pleased Beijing while Hanoi and Manila were furious and effectively killed
of any chance of concluding a deal on the COC.
Tensions continued to intensify,
negotiators were annoyed by a Cambodian habit of consulting with China while
still in talks with fellow members of ASEAN and for
the first time in 45 years the bloc failed to issue a closing statement.
“ASEAN is once again
demonstrating that it really does not have the weight to be able to achieve
anything in this sort of stand-off between much greater powers,
leaving individual member states to make their own deals,” Loveard added.
“The fact that most of them
prefer to snuggle up to the U.S. is hardly likely to please China, so keeping
the area conflict-free appears to be a very difficult goal.”
Clinton
flew to Siem Reap where she met with independent union leaders
responsible for the livelihoods of garment workers, the vast majority of them
women, and onto Burma where leaders have grown wary of Chinese ambitions in the
region.
Human rights groups were critical
of the U.S. decision to lift sanctions against Burma despite widespread
applause for political and social reforms. They say much more needs to be done
and by allowing deals with Burma’s state-owned oil companies the U.S. could be
undercutting opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, among others, who are
demanding government accountability.
Clinton
also raised the fate of Rohingyas—a Muslim ethnic group in western
Burma—who have been at the center of conflict with Rakhine Buddhists, which
resulted in violent riots a month ago leaving at least 78 people dead and tens
of thousands homeless.
It’s a sore point with Naypyidaw.
President Thein Sein wants the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to resettle
the Rohingya in a third country or take responsibility for them. This was
rejected and Clinton
stressed that the U.S. considers the Rohingyas internally displaced people.
“In other words this is Burma’s
problem and they will have to deal with it. The idea that the president of a
country would like to see one of its main ethnic groups evicted is awful but
Clinton dealt with it in a very straightforward manner,” one long-time Burma
analyst, who declined to be named, said.
“And the Burmese wore it and will
have to deal with the Rohingyas as a domestic issue as opposed to trying to
offload it onto the international community,” he said.
Throughout her tour Clinton
rarely flinched on human rights and yet left Southeast Asia on a vastly
improved footing with Vietnam, Laos and Burma. All three have less than stellar
records on human rights.
Relations with traditional allies
in Thailand and The Philippines remained solid while with Singapore, Malaysia,
Brunei and Indonesia, the U.S. stands in good stead.
It’s the type of relationship
that China can only wish for and one the Cambodians risk missing out on by
continuing to be Beijing’s closest ally inside a political and trading bloc
that was initially designed to fend off and compete with Chinese hegemony—not
represent it.
The U.S. push back into Asia is
well on track.
Luke Hunt
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programmes. Many thanks for visiting www.yourvietnamexpert.com and/or contacting us at contact@yourvietnamexpert.com
No comments:
Post a Comment