There is no bigger news in Asean these days than the collapse of efforts
to produce a joint communique after the recent 45th ministerial meeting in
Phnom Penh. Much of the blame has been laid at the feet of host Cambodia but
that misses the larger point.
The failure to issue a communique
was the first in the history of the 10-member organisation that prides itself
on harmony and consensus. Some observers have begun to question what Cambodia
was doing as the Asean chair this year.
What happened in Phnom Penh, in a
nutshell, was that one country’s fear of offending China somehow managed to
trump all the others’ desire to send Beijing a stern message about its
behaviour in the South China Sea.
The fact is, people could have
seen this bust-up coming. During the April summit, Cambodia nearly managed to
singlehandedly derail efforts to discuss a “code of conduct” in the South China
Sea.
Prime Minister Hun Sen spent
nearly an hour trying to explain to journalists how important China was to the
region, but the others prevailed and the code of conduct was deliberated. It
was hoped at the time that the July meeting would build on that progress.
Hun Sen’s defence of Beijing in
April came just days after Chinese President Hu Jintao had visited Cambodia.
Indeed, had the April summit collapsed, it would have been much easier to point
the finger of blame.
The Cambodian premier in the past
has praised China’s approach to giving money with no strings attached. Perhaps
he’s annoyed that some other members of the “international donor community”
want some accounting for the billions of dollars they have spent helping one of
the world’s sorriest basket cases become a functioning economy.
It should come as no surprise,
then, that Cambodia has little to lose by ditching the long-term interests of
Asean for the short-term benefits it can receive by siding with China. Other
politicians with short-term vested interests and patrons in Beijing would
probably do the same.
Apart from this, the region
itself is so intertwined with China that it is difficult to separate and not be
influenced by the goliath to the north.
At the heart of recent tensions
has been the Spratly Islands, in which Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and
Brunei all claim some interest, apart from China and Taiwan.
Therefore putting all the blame
on Cambodia is not entirely fair. Instead it should be said that China is the
culprit.
China, it seems, has learned its
lessons well from the colonial powers of a bygone era. A divide-and-rule
strategy works well in Asean, where Beijing can exploit the wide gap between
rich and poor nations with some well-placed giveaways. No wonder Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hong Lei described the historic debacle of the meeting as
“positive”.
Cambodia is hardly the first
country that has gone out of its way to stay in China’s good books, and it
won’t be the last. In 2014 the Asean chairmanship shifts to Myanmar, which was
a client state of China when the military junta was in charge. Beijing has
poured billions into infrastructure in Myanmar, but the new government now aims
to counter China’s influence by putting out the welcome mat to investors from
all over the world.
Even Thailand, much higher up the
development ladder, has relied heavily on support from China for big projects,
an ambitious new rail network the most recent case in point.
So why then should we blame only
Cambodia for the cracks in Asean’s harmonious facade? Blame China if you want,
but also blame ourselves, Asean citizens and leaders, for not sticking
together, especially on an issue that involves four of Asean’s 10 member
states.
Finally, blame the way Asean
works, and the obsession with “consensus” that sometimes flies in the face of
reality. What’s so wrong with adopting decisions based on the wishes of the
majority? There may be times when members have to sideline a few bad actors so
they can’t derail efforts to work for the benefit of the 600 million-plus other
citizens of the region.
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