PHNOM PENH - The official theme for Cambodia's chairmanship of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is "One Community, One Destiny" - but
the outcomes of this year's meetings highlighted the bloc's growing divisions
on the issue of China.
Last week in the Cambodian
capital, the Foreign Ministers' meeting came to an acrimonious end when
delegates from the 10-member bloc failed to issue their customary joint
communique - the first time they have failed to do so in ASEAN's 45-year history
- after disagreements over the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
China claims sovereignty over
most of the resource-rich sea, but four ASEAN nations - the Philippines,
Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei - have advanced competing claims. Last week's
meetings were overshadowed by a flare-up over a group of islands known as the
Scarborough Shoal, a fish-rich reef claimed by both China and the Philippines.
The two countries had a military stand-off over the shoal earlier this year,
sending ships to the area.
During ASEAN talks on the
creation of a Code of Conduct, which would govern the behavior of ships in the
disputed maritime areas, Manila tried to insert reference to the Scarborough
Shoal, but claims it was blocked by Cambodia - a close ally of China. ASEAN
Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan called the meeting's outcome "very
disappointing", while Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said it
was "utterly irresponsible" that the grouping could not come up with
a joint statement on the South China Sea dispute.
Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor
Namhong blamed unnamed "member countries" for trying to forcibly
include a mention of the Scarborough Shoal issue in the final communique. He
called these requests "unacceptable", and laid the blame for the
breakdown on "the whole of ASEAN".
In response, the Philippines said
in a statement that "it deplore[d] the non-issuance of a joint
communique" and took "strong exception" to Cambodia's actions,
arguing that they undermined previous agreements to tackle the South China Sea
disputes as a unified bloc - rather than bilaterally, as China would prefer.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told Bloomberg that the impasse
was a result of Chinese "pressure, duplicity [and] intimidation".
Similar tensions were also
apparent at the annual ASEAN Summit in April, when Cambodia kept the South
China Sea dispute off the official agenda. Some analysts suggested that Chinese
President Hu Jintao, who arrived on a high-profile state visit just days before
the opening of the summit, had pressured Phnom Penh over the issue.
The recent tensions highlight
just how far Chinese influence has increased in Cambodia in recent years.
Beijing's offers of hefty amounts of loans and investment dollars unconstrained
by human-rights or good governance concerns has been eagerly taken up by
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who resents the conditions often attached to
Western aid.
Chinese state banks today
bankroll the construction of roads, bridges, hydropower dams, real estate
developments and tourist resorts in Cambodia. Over the past decade, these loans
and grants have run into the billions of US dollars, and official delegations
shuttle back and forth between the two countries each year.
Monetary attachment
Despite Hun Sen's claims that
China's support is offered without strings, Beijing's economic clout has bought
the country considerable political leverage in Cambodia. This was dramatically
demonstrated in December 2009 when Cambodia deported 20 ethnic Uyghur asylum seekers
to China. The timing of the deportation - a day before the arrival of a Chinese
official carrying a $1.2 billion package of grants and loan agreements - left
few in doubt that extreme pressure was brought to bear on Phnom Penh.
This unspoken quid pro quo
arrangement extends back as far as July 1997, when Hun Sen ousted his rival,
Prince Norodom Ranariddh, in a bloody factional coup. Unlike many Western
countries, which balked at the bloodshed in Phnom Penh, China immediately
recognized the status quo and offered military aid. Hun Sen reciprocated by
shuttering the Taiwanese representative's office in Phnom Penh after accusing
Taiwanese elements of providing support to his rivals, and in the years since
has frequently voiced support for the One-China policy.
"I think it's very difficult
to deny there are no strings attached to Chinese aid and economic assistance in
Cambodia," said Lao Mong Hay, an independent political analyst based in
Phnom Penh. "The attitude and position taken by Cambodia at the last
[ASEAN] meeting shows that it was toeing the Chinese line."
ASEAN, a regional grouping built
on the premise of safeguarding Southeast Asian interests from outside pressure
or interference, now faces an uncertain year.
Analysts say the disappointing
end to last week's foreign ministers' meeting could undermine ASEAN unity on
the vital South China Sea issue, making it that much more difficult to
negotiate a Code of Conduct with China.
"Cambodia's single act of
obstinacy is a reflection of China's influence and not Cambodian
interests," said Carlyle Thayer, an analyst at the Australian Defence
Force Academy in Sydney, adding that it would likely "poison" ASEAN
proceedings until the next round of summits in November.
However, the dispute could potentially
have deeper implications for ASEAN, cracking its unity and exacerbating the
differences between the grouping's widely diverse member states.
The bloc was founded in 1967 as a
bulwark against the expansion of communism in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand as members. During the 1970s
and '80s it played a strong role in the US-led isolation of communist Vietnam,
and, after 1979, the Cambodian government installed by Hanoi after the
overthrow of the murderous regime led by the Khmer Rouge. The end of the Cold
War brought an end to the overt anti-communist posture of ASEAN, which was
eventually expanded to include Vietnam (1995), Laos and Myanmar (1997), and
Cambodia (1999).
But tensions have remained between
the old and new members. In 2007, Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew,
identified a division between ASEAN's original member states and the poorer
nations that joined in the 1990s. According to a leaked cable from the US
Embassy in Singapore, Lee told US officials that ASEAN should not have admitted
Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam as members, fearful that some might act as
a pro-Chinese fifth column within ASEAN.
"The older members of ASEAN
shared common values and an antipathy to communism," the cable states,
quoting Lee's views. "Those values had been 'muddied' by the new members,
and their economic and social problems made it doubtful they would ever behave
like the older ASEAN members."
Lee particularly focused on Laos,
describing it as an "outpost" of China that reported back to Beijing
on the content of all ASEAN meetings - but he could easily have mentioned
Cambodia, which is quickly becoming China's most dependable ally in the region.
Thayer said last week's
imbroglio, after years of pro-unity rhetoric, was "the first major breach
of the dyke of regional autonomy" created by ASEAN. "China has now
reached into ASEAN's inner sanctum and played on intra-ASEAN divisions,"
he said.
In the worst-case scenario, he
added, continuing disagreement could undermine the creation of the planned
ASEAN Political-Security Community and potentially raise the specter of a de
facto division between the mainland Southeast Asian states - Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar - and ASEAN's maritime states. "I don't
know how this rift is going to be overcome," he said.
It is too soon to say whether
last week's stand-off will sound the death knell for ASEAN's "One
Community" pledge. Lao Mong Hay, for one, believes there are "serious
leaders [in ASEAN] who will set out to repair the damage". But it is
quickly becoming apparent that Phnom Penh's dependence on Chinese loans and
grants is a development with regional implications.
Sebastian Strangio
Asia Times
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